Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

DEATH OF A MEMBER

Mr. Speaker: I regret to have to inform the House of the death of Ioan Lyonel Evans, Esquire, Member for Cynon Valley, and I desire, on behalf of the House, to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the hon. Member.

Oral Answers to Questions — WALES

Cardiff-Wales Airport

Mr. Terlezki: asked the Secretary of State for Wales how many passengers were handled at Cardiff-Wales airport in (a) 1979 and (b) 1983.

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Nicholas Edwards): The number of passengers handled at Cardiff-Wales airport has increased from 260,553 in 1979 to 385,064 in 1983—an increase of almost 48 per cent.
I know that it is not the custom of the House, Mr. Speaker, to pay formal tribute to Members who have died, but Ioan Evans had a question on the Order Paper for today and took part vigorously in the debate on Welsh affairs last week. I hope, therefore, that I shall not be out of order in saying what a shock the news of his death at the weekend was for all of us. He had a Welsh way with words, he was always good natured and cheerful, he was immensely hard working and I know that he looked after his constituents very well. He will be missed in all parts of the House.

Mr. Terlezki: First, I associate myself with my right hon. Friend's expression of sorrow.
I thank my right hon. Friend for his encouraging answer to my question and congratulate him on his success in helping to secure redevelopment of the Cardiff Bute dock area as well as helping to obtain a freeport in Cardiff. Does he envisage that the sky over Cardiff airport will be brighter and bluer now that a freeport is to be established in the Principality?

Mr. Edwards: The intention is to establish the freeport in the dock area of Cardiff, but we shall certainly consider the possibility of making the facilities available to air traffic using Cardiff airport.

Mr. Geraint Howells: I, too, was sorry to hear of the sudden death of Mr. Ioan Evans. He will be greatly missed in the House. He was loyal to this Chamber and will be


missed by colleagues on both sides. He will also be missed by many people in Wales. My sympathy goes to Mrs. Evans and the family.

Mr. Rhodes James: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the deep sadness at the death of Ioan Evans is not confined to Welsh Members of Parliament?
Does not the great success of the development of Cardiff-Wales airport and other municipal airports throw into question the Government's alleged policy of developing Stansted as an alternative airport for London?

Mr. Edwards: As my hon. Friend is well aware, the development of Stansted airport is not a matter for me.

Mr. Wigley: On behalf of Plaid Cymru, I associate myself with the words of condolence that have been expressed at the very sad bereavement suffered by Mr. Ioan Evans' family. It came as a great shock to Members in all parts of the House, who had great respect for him. Indeed, when he closed the debate last Wednesday night we were remarking on the diligence and hard work that he had put into preparing for that debate. He was a diligent Member, especially at Question Time. I am sure that we all wish our feelings to be conveyed to his family.

Mr. Barry Jones: I thank the Secretary of State for his generous remarks regarding Mr. Ioan Evans. I take this opportunity, on behalf of my Opposition colleagues, to say that Ioan Evans was a superb parliamentarian who made one of his finest speeches only last Wednesday. He was a lion-hearted fighter for social justice and a dedicated fighter for the valleys of south east Wales.

Mr. Speaker: Order. On behalf of myself and my deputies, I should like to say how closely we associate ourselves with what has been said about Mr. Ioan Evans.

Welsh Water Authority

Mr. Barry Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Wales when he next proposes to meet the chairman of the Welsh water authority.

The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Wyn Roberts): My right hon. Friend last met the chairman on Tuesday 24 January, and has no immediate plans for a further meeting.

Mr. Jones: With reference to the Department's response to the Select Committee's report, why has the Minister so signally failed to bring forward measures to achieve equalisation of water charges and to give water rate rebates?
The widespread contamination of the north east Wales drinking water supplies by the dangerous chemical phenol has caused grave public disquiet. Does the Minister agree that the alarming factor is that phenol, which attacks the kidneys and can cause cancer, got through the system into my constituents' water supplies? Is he aware that the south Clwyd community physician reported a wave of minor illnesses which coincided with the contamination? Will the Minister institute a public inquiry? When will the water authority publish its findings? Will the findings be made available to the public? Will my constituents be able to claim compensation? Can the Under-Secretary assure the House that such a serious lapse will not happen again?

Mr. Roberts: The matters to which the hon. Gentleman refers in connection with the Select Committee

report were dealt with in the Government's response to that report. I dare say that we shall have an opportunity to discuss those matters in a debate on Welsh day and, possibly, in the Welsh Grand Committee.
I, too, was very disturbed about the pollution incident. The Welsh water authority and the North West water authority art undertaking a joint investigation of the causes and effects of that incident and the lessons to be learnt from it. Welsh Office officials are in close touch with the Welsh water authority, and I have asked to be informed of the results of the joint investigations. We shall then consider what further action to take.

Sir Anthony Meyer: There is undoubtedly scope for amending the system of water charges, but would it not be very difficult to sell to consumers in Wales the idea of introducing a standing charge?

Mr. Roberts: The Welsh water authority is aware of that problem. It has been, and still is, discussing its new tariff arrangements with local consumer committees.

Mr. Golding: Will the Minister arrange to meet the chairman as quickly as possible and tell him that the proposal to levy an additional rate on those who rent or own rivers will hit the Welsh fishery associations very hard and that there is great opposition among anglers everywhere to this additional burden?

Mr. Roberts: I am sure that the chairman of the Welsh water authority will note what the hon. Gentleman said. The matter is under consideration.

Mr. Raffan: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is serious public concern about the proposed reorganisation of the Welsh water authority? Does he agree that the creation of a north Wales operating division, not at Mold but at Bangor, away from industrial and population centres, is bound to reduce the service to domestic and industrial users, and that the transfer of laboratory facilities from Chester to Caernarfon, also away from industrial centres, will increase the problems of pollution control, which are particularly worrying in view of the recent contamination of the River Dee?

Mr. Roberts: I do not think that all Gwynedd Members would agree with my hon. Friend. The internal reorganisation of the Welsh water authority is a matter for the authority. It is not a matter in which my right hon. Friend can intervene. However, if the reorganisation leads to cost reductions, it will be welcomed by Welsh water rate payers.

Mr. D. E. Thomas: When the Minster meets the chairman of the water authority, will he discuss with him the pollution of all fishery rivers in Wales, especially the four serious incidents last year in the River Mawddach, which is in my constituency? Will the Welsh Office ensure that there is adequate funding for anti-pollution and anti-poaching in measures those rivers?

Mr. Roberts: Those are matters for the authority. We are aware that it pays proper regard to pollution. I am sure that it is fully aware of the incidents in the River Mawddach.

Sir Raymond Gower: I am aware that the equalisation of charges is a substantial issue which requires long-term consideration, but will the Welsh Office reconsider


rebates? As rebates are available to water consumers in Scotland, is there any reason why they should not also be available in Wales?

Mr. Roberts: My hon. Friend is aware that it is possible to give rebates to people who receive supplementary benefit, but any rebate in a system which is devised by a water authority must be paid for by other consumers. My hon. Friend will know that partial equalisation was tried and that it failed.

Mr. Gareth Wardell: When the Secretary of State next meets the chairman of the water authority, will he seek an assurance that no more white elephants, such as that built at Haverfordwest, will be built so that the disruption to some of my constituents, who will now have to move to Haverfordwest to work, will not happen again?

Mr. Roberts: I am afraid that we are back to the internal reorganisation of the authority, which is a matter for the authority. The Government are satisfied that the newly-created authority, which came into being in April 1982, is fully equipped to carry out its own reorganisation and to come to a proper judgment upon it.

Dr. Marek: Has the Minister undertaken to publish the report on pollution in north east Wales?

Mr. Roberts: It is premature for me to give any such assurance.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have allowed a good run on this question, as I understand that it is of great importance to Welsh Members. The House will understand if we now get on rather more rapidly.

Rural Bridges

Mr. Hooson: asked the Secretary of State for Wales whether he will establish a programme for raising the weight capacity of Welsh rural bridges.

The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Mr. John Stradling Thomas): No special programme is needed for trunk road bridges in Wales, which will continue to be strengthened or replaced as necessary as part of the normal programme. Bridges on county roads are the responsibility of the relevant local highway authority.

Mr. Hooson: Will my hon. Friend consider having consultations with all the Welsh counties to co-ordinate a joint review of the weight capacity of the bridges which are the counties' responsibility, as the trend to larger lorry loads frequently forces inconvenient loading and unloading of agricultural loads miles away from some farmsteads?

Mr. Stradling Thomas: A new code on the assessment of bridges will be promulgated shortly. It is not possible at this stage to say what implications it will have, but any need for additional resources for bridge repair will be considered carefully. My officials are in constant touch with county engineers.

British Steel Corporation

Mr. Roy Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what recent discussions he has had with the chairman of the British Steel Corporation; and what subjects were discussed.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: I have met the chairman of the British Steel Corporation on two occasions recently and discussed a range of matters relating to the industry in Wales.

Mr. Hughes: When the Secretary of State next meets the chairman, will he tell him that we in south Wales are fed up with persistent rumours about the possible closure of Llanwern? Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the chairman that he should ensure that his top executives do not speculate idly about these matters or exercise their long-standing prejudice against this great works? Does he agree that, more than anything else, the workers at Llanwern deserve a hearty slap on the back for a job well done?

Mr. Edwards: The hon. Gentleman should not join in the speculation on a range of issues, including this one. The British Steel Corporation has not put forward any proposals of that sort and has not yet submitted its corporate plan. I join the hon. Gentleman in his congratulatory remarks about the performance of Llanwern in the past year or two.

Mr. Foot: Does the Secretary of State recognise that when my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, East (Mr Hughes) raises this issue, he speaks not only for those in Newport but for a much wider area? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that a closure or rundown at Llanwern would be unthinkable, that the idea should be killed stone dead and that Llanwern should have every encouragement to make its contribution to the recovery, when it comes?

Mr. Edwards: I have seen no proposal or suggestion that Llanwern might be closed. We are awaiting the submissions of the BSC, which has made it clear to us that it wants to review its corporate strategy following the breakdown of the United States steel negotiations. I have maintained the closest possible contact with those involved. I recently met the unions at Llanwern and Port Talbot, and I am in close touch with local management. I share the right hon. Gentleman's interest and anxiety about the matter. He may rest assured that I shall continue to follow events extremely closely.

Mr. Mark Robinson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, after the success of the slimline programme since 1980, Llanwern has the potential, with the right investment, to become one of the most efficient steel plants not only in Europe but possibly in the world?

Mr. Edwards: It has become a very competitive steel plant, but it will have to continue to make efforts to maintain that position in a world that does not stand still. I agree that further investment in concast could make a considerable difference to those efforts.

Mr. Barry Jones: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that Wales has already paid a stunning price in steel job losses—about 30,000 since 1979? Is not the existing hot strip mill capacity in south Wales vital to the south Wales economy? Will he give a specific pledge that the Llanwern mill is safe for the rest of the century?

Mr. Edwards: We have two of the most competitive steel plants in Europe, and that is a matter for congratulation. So long as they remain among the most competitive steel plants in Europe, there need be no fear about their future.

Local Authority Resources

Mr. Wigley: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if, in the light of representations he has received from individuals, local authorities and hon. Members since 1 January, he is satisfied that local authorities in Wales have sufficient resources to meet their requirements for 1984–85.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Wigley: Will the Secretary of State confirm that he has received several hundred letters within the past three months complaining about the lack of resources for Welsh housing authorities to meet the enormous demand for house renovation grants? Will he further confirm that about 100,000 families in Wales are on the waiting list for grants, and that some of them will have to wait until 1988 or 1989 to get grants which the Government boasted during the general election were available to them? Is that not disgraceful?

Mr. Edwards: The Government have enormously increased the finance available for improvement grants, which reached a substantial level in the past year. Large sums are still available to local authorities for the coming year. If they treat as urgent the job of completing the sale of council houses, they will have a very large sum of money to spend on that important task.

Mr. Barry Jones: Has not the Secretary of State brutally slashed the block grants of the district authorities in Wales? May I remind him that he has slashed the block grants in Alyn and Deeside by £266,000, in Delyn by £375,000, in Cardiff by £1·3 million, in south Pembrokeshire by 15 per cent., and in Swansea by £750,000?

Mr. Edwards: No. As was explained in the rate support grant debate last week, we have reallocated resources between districts and counties on the basis of the last round of expenditure by the districts. That is the sensible way to proceed.

Shotton and Deeside

Mr. Raffan: asked the Secretary of State for Wales how many new jobs were created in the Shotton and Deeside travel-to-work areas, respectively, during the last 12 months as a direct result of selective financial assistance, the allocation of Government factories and urban development grant.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: Between 1 January and 31 December 1983 projects in the Shotton travel-to-work area for which offers of selective financial assistance were accepted or which were allocated Government-financed factory space promise 930 jobs.

Mr. Raffan: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the good progress being made in job creation will be completely undermined if Clwyd county council proceeds with its proposed 24p—16 per cent.—rate increase? Is he aware that Courtauld's Greenfield mill in my constituency has said that it cannot pay its increased £56,000 bill without making 10 or 11 men redundant? If the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) is to retain a shred of credibility as Labour's chief spokesman for Wales, is it not time that he came down off the fence and condemned outright a rate increase that will destroy jobs?

Mr. Edwards: As many Opposition Members have said that rate increases are of little or no significance to industry, we are entitled to listen to what Mr. Davies, the head of Courtauld's Greenfield mill, has to say. He says that the mill has undertaken an enormous amount of hard work recently, and in addition:
We are not in profit, we are breaking even and I am now going to find my manufacturing costs increasing between £50,000 and £60,000.

Mr. Barry Jones: Although I welcome every prospect of new jobs in the Clwyd area, may I ask the Secretary of State to instruct the chairman of the Welsh water authority not to allow the closure of its offices at Mold, with the loss of 200 jobs? What is the Secretary of State doing inside the Government to ensure the provision of launch aid for the A320 at Broughton?

Mr. Edwards: I announced recently a considerable amount of new investment in that part of Wales. There will be further expenditure on the Maelor creamery in north east Wales, and Tetra-pak has also announced further investment there. The hon. Gentleman will know that the Government are considering the airbus and that we expect to make an announcement fairly soon.
As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State said, the Government do not seek to interfere with the management decisions of the Welsh water authority.

Mr. D. E. Thomas: Does the Secretary of State accept that many of us who represent or have interests in Clwyd support the attempts of the local authority to maintain its high standards of service? In both personal social services and education Clwyd has set a lead for Wales over the years, and the Opposition do not wish those services to be cut.

Mr. Edwards: We appreciate much of the work that is being done by Clwyd, but we have given it a massive allocation of resources under the urban programme. When the urban development grants are announced—I believe tomorrow—Clwyd will discover that there is a further allocation of resources to that part of Wales. I repeat what I said in the House last week, and what I have said today, that the rate increases proposed by Clwyd can do nothing but damage to industry and commerce in that area.

Transport

Dr. Marek: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has for the development of transport and transport infrastructure in Wales.

Mr. John Stradling Thomas: The Government's strategy for the development of the road network in Wales is set out in "Roads in Wales 1983"—a copy of which is in the Library of the House. As for public transport in Wales generally, we propose to issue a consultation paper about possible changes in responsibilities for transport services.

Dr. Marek: The announcement of a consultation paper will be widely welcomed in Wales. Will the Minister do all that he can to ensure that there are no irrevocable changes in transport infrastructure in Wales before the consultation process has been completed?

Mr. Stradling Thomas: Yes, I think that I can give that assurance. It is a consultation paper, but it would not be profitable to speculate on its content in advance of publication. There will be full consultation.

Mr. Geraint Howells: What representations, if any, has the Minister made to the chairman of British Rail regarding the future of the mid-Wales line, the Cambrian coast line, and the Shrewsbury to Llanelli line to ensure that more money is spent on those lines and that services are improved?

Mr. Stradling Thomas: Consultations are continuing on those subjects.

Mr. Wigley: Does the Minister accept that an important part of the infrastructure of Gwynedd is the port of Holyhead, and that there is considerable fear in Holyhead about the privatisation of Sealink? Can the hon. Gentleman assure us that his Department has been involved in this matter, and can he give a guarantee that there will be no job losses at Sealink?

Mr. Stradling Thomas: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman an assurance on the second part of his supplementary. As he knows, the Government intend to privatise Sealink. I hope that that will strengthen the position in Holyhead.

Mr. Barry Jones: May I tell the Minister of State of British Rail's miserable and disgraceful decision to single-track 12 miles of the Wrexham to Bidston railway line this coming year, although it told me in a letter late last year that it would be 1988–89? Will he instruct British Rail's executives to think again and initiate meaningful consultations? What will the Minister of State do to help my very worried constituents?

Mr. Stradling Thomas: As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, the single-tracking of that line is a matter for the Railways Board. It considers that the current and anticipated traffic can be accommodated on single track. I have noted the point made by the hon. Gentleman. We have discussed the matter previously.

Secondary Schools

Mr. Hubbard-Miles: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what is the projected fall in pupil numbers in maintained secondary schools in Wales from 1983 to 1987, and from 1983 to 1992.

Mr. John Stradling Thomas: Between 1983 and 1987 the projected fall in maintained secondary school pupil numbers is 25,900 and between 1983 and 1992 52,700.

Mr. Hubbard-Miles: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Does he agree that those figures show the opportunities that are available to local education authorities to plan so as to improve services in the secondary sector at the same time as making economies?

Mr. Stradling Thomas: I agree with my hon. Friend. I do not, however, underestimate the difficulties faced by local education authorities in taking surplus places out of use. At the same time, that is an opportunity and a challenge.

Mr. Gareth Wardell: Does the Minister agree that, as a result of the much reduced rate support grant settlement to Welsh local authorities, a percentage of the lower numbers in secondary schools will be denied the free school transport that they now enjoy because local authorities will be forced to trim to the statutory limit? There will be 10,000 pupils in west Glamorgan who will be denied free school transport in the coming year.

Mr. Stradling Thomas: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's point. I have noted it, and, of course, such policy decisions are a matter for the local education authorities.

Heath Hospital, Cardiff (Bone Marrow Transplant Unit)

Mr. Ron Davies: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what is his estimate of (a) capital and (b) revenue expenditure to be incurred during 1984–85 on the development of the bone marrow transplant unit at the Heath hospital, Cardiff.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: A total of £100,000 has been allocated for 1984–85, of which about £20,000 will be for conversion works.

Mr. Davies: Does the Minister accept that, following his announcement of the establishment of this unit, there is considerable disquiet in the Principality about the proposed timetable for its completion? That disquiet is shared by the leukaemia research appeal for Wales and Dr. Whittaker the consultant at the Heath hospital? Will the Minister reconsider that timetable and the giving of further funds, so that the unit can reach its maximum potential within 12 months and not five years?

Mr. Roberts: It is certainly not five years, it is two years. We believe that it is wise to take two years to reach the full 20 transplants a year that are expected. It is not solely a question of pumping money into the unit. There is the problem of training staff and obtaining supporting services and equipment.

NHS (Expenditure)

Mr. D. E. Thomas: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what was the total expenditure on the National Health Service in Wales in the latest year for which figures are available.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: The latest year for which outturn figures are available is 1982–83. In that year gross expenditure on the National Health Service in Wales was £766·6 million.

Mr. Thomas: Will the Minister accept what he apparently failed to accept in our exchanges recently in the Western Mail, namely, that the overall budget of the National Health Service in Wales is underfunded and that, were the RAWP formula, which is available for English regions, operating for the total NHS revenue in Wales, Wales would have an additional 7 per cent. of total funding?

Mr. Roberts: I am sorry that evidently the hon. Gentleman has not seen the reply that was published to his letter in the Western Mail—or at least he has not absorbed its contents. What that letter said, as I shall now make clear, is that Wales has moved, during the period of this Government, to almost exactly the share suggested by Professor Maynard's calculations, and that does not take into account the substantial growth of about 2 per cent. in the revenue resources to be provided to district health authorities next year.

Mr. Gwilym Jones: When will the allocations to health authorities be announced?

Mr. Roberts: I have today notified health authorities in Wales of their provisional revenue allocations for next


year. No authority is being allocated a base line which is less than its current year's provision, uplifted for pay and price movements, and most will be better off. All authorities in Wales will have available to them additional funds to finance new developments in 1984–85. The total of hospital and community health revenue provision will be about 2 per cent. more than in 1983–84.

Mr. Coleman: rose—

Mr. D. E. Thomas: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the totally unsatisfactory nature of that reply—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are still discussing the question.

Mr. Coleman: With regard to the allocations that the Minister has just announced, has he any proposals for the establishment of facilities in Wales that will cater for patients whose homes and families are in the Principality but who are presently accommodated in hospitals such as Rampton? If not, when will he make such provision available?

Mr. Roberts: We are considering the whole question of secure accommodation in our hospitals in Wales. We have recently made a spate of announcements and we shall undoubtedly be making an announcement about that matter in the not too distant future.

Mr. Thomas: In view of the totally unsatisfactory and incomprehensible nature of the Minister's answer, I beg to give notice that I shall seek leave to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Llanwern Steelworks

Mr. Mark Robinson: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has received from the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation regarding the future of the Llanwern steelworks.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: I met representatives of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation on 30 January. We discussed the achievements of Llanwern to date and the prospects for future investment at the plant.

Mr. Robinson: I am glad that my right hon. Friend has mentioned that the representations referred to the positive successes at Llanwern. As an example of that, since the closure of Shotton, Llanwern has captured 15 per cent. of the entire vitreous enamel market, as compared with a previous figure of nought per cent. That is a sign of success. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should lead from example and that success will lead to further success?

Mr. Edwards: I agree with my hon. Friend. The facts concerning Llanwern are clear. As a result of streamlining, the man hours per tonne have improved from 7·0 in 1980 to about half that figure in recent months. Indeed, the best figure for any one month was 3·2 and the average over the year was 3·6. That is a striking record of progress, and I am sure that every effort will be made to maintain it and improve on it still further.

Mr. Ray Powell: Will the Secretary of State ensure that we maintain the strip mill capacity that we now have in Wales? If not, will he, like his colleague the Secretary of State for Scotland, offer his resignation if there is pressure to close either of the works in Wales?

Mr. Edwards: I have no intention of offering my resignation against a threat that has not even been made, and still less of informing the hon. Gentleman about it at the outset of the proceedings.

Council House Sales

Mr. Knox: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on progress made to date with the sale of council houses to sitting tenants in Wales.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave him on 23 January 1984.

Mr. Knox: Does my hon. Friend agree that Welsh local authorities have made very good progress in pursuing the Government's right-to-buy policy? Does he further agree that it is very much to their advantage to do so?

Mr. Roberts: I agree with my hon. Friend on both points. The receipts from the sales already made have increased the capital sources available to local authorities by over £100 million, and it clearly remains in their interests, as my right hon. Friend said, to maintain a vigorous sales policy.

Cancer Patients (North Wales)

Sir Anthony Meyer: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he is satisfied with the radiotherapy facilities available to National Health Service cancer patients in North Wales.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: As my hon. Friend is aware, radiotherapy facilities for National Health Service cancer patients in north Wales are provided at Clatterbridge hospital in the Mersey regional health authority. There are difficulties, but I understand that proposals for creating a better level of radiotherapy service at Clatterbridge will be put to Mersey regional health authority at its next meeting. Welsh Office officials will report to me as a matter of urgency the decisions of the authority, and the effects that these will have on patients in north Wales.

Sir Anthony Meyer: Is my hon. Friend aware that there will be some relief at the urgency with which he is tackling the problem? Is it not worrying that cancer patients in north Wales should be at the mercy of the Mersey health authority conducting its affairs sufficiently efficiently to maintain the existence of vital treatment facilities?

Mr. Roberts: I understand that financial provision for the Mersey regional health authority takes into account the fact that it provides services to patients from north Wales.

University Hospital of Wales

Mr. Gwilym Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has received since his announcement on 19 January about bone marrow transplantation and cardiology and cardiac surgery at the University hospital of Wales.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: I have received no direct representations from district health authorities or the general public. I have seen seven copies of a letter which the secretary of the leukaemia research appeal for Wales in Caerphilly has sent to Welsh Members and to the Welsh Office's chief medical officer; I have also answered during the past week 11 parliamentary questions from the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies).

Mr. Jones: Despite some suggestions to the contrary, I feel that my right hon. Friend's statement in answer to my question on 19 January has been widely welcomed throughout Wales. On the subject of cardiology and cardiac surgery, will my hon. Friend expand on the significance of this extra funding for the NHS?

Mr. Roberts: My hon. Friend is, of course, referring to the announcement about the development of cardiothoracic facilities at the Heath hospital, Cardiff. The existing facilities for cardiology at Llandough hospital will be transferred to the Heath site to provide a single integrated unit. The capacity of that unit will increase from 500 operations per year to approximately 1,100 operations per year. It is proposed that more money be set aside for the needs of the existing unit for services in 1984–85, and the detailed planning is starting now.

Mr. Ron Davies: If there is no disquiet which the Minister has been able to recognise concerning the establishment of the bone marrow transplant unit, can he explain why on 25 January the consultant haematologist at the University hospital of Wales wrote to the chief administrative officer raising a number of queries, and explaining to the chief administrative officer his reservations about the timetable?

Mr. Wyn Roberts: As I said in my answer to the question, the concern appeared to be limited to the area of Caerphilly, represented by the hon. Gentleman. The bone marrow transplant unit has been developed very quickly, which I am sure many people will welcome. It was only in October last year that the relevant United Kingdom committee decided that bone marrow transplants should be carried out on a regional basis. The Welsh Office has moved very fast. I know the views of the consultant concerned, but he is not the only person to express a medical opinion. We were bound to come to the decision that we have reached, to phase in the increase in treatment over a two-year period.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHURCH COMMISSIONERS

Churches (Demolition)

Mr. Chapman: asked the hon. Member for Wokingham, as representing the Church Commissioners, how many churches, within the responsibility of the Church Commissioners, with the equivalent grading to secular listed buildings, have been demolished.

The Second Church Estates Commissioner, Representing the Church Commissioners (Sir William van Straubenzee): The total number of listed redundant churches which have been demolished since 1969 is 53. Of these, 11 were ungraded, 21 in grade C, 20 in grade B and 1 in grade A. In none of these cases was demolition opposed by the Advisory Board for Redundant Churches.

Mr. Chapman: I thank my hon. Friend for that information and welcome the fact that only one grade A church has been demolished since 1969. Can my hon. Friend confirm that the Church Commissioners use every practicable means and take every possible care to find alternative uses for churches that are made redundant, and that demolition is permitted only if there is no practical economic alternative to saving them?

Sir William van Straubenzee: Yes, and that is why, as my hon. Friend will recall, when I answered his

question on 7 March about the same period I was able to show him that 53 per cent. of such churches had been put to new uses, 20 per cent. preserved and only 27 per cent. demolished.

Mr. Frank Field: Given the importance of the ecclesiastical exemption from planning law, will the hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that he will seek to persuade the Leader of the House that we should debate in the House the jurisdiction report which was published last week?

Sir William van Straubenzee: I know that the hon. Gentleman understands that matters concerning debates in the House are not for me. Presumably that report NA, ill first be debated by the General Synod. I am sure that the powers that be in the House will have heard what the hon. Gentleman has said.

Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Is it not meant to be the case that the Church was founded on God and not God upon the Church? Would it not be better if redundant churches were demolished, instead of being kept as useless monuments, and the money used to keep the Church in being?

Sir William van Straubenzee: With respect to my hon. Friend, a large number of people would deeply regret the injury to our heritage if some of our architectural jewels, which are the inheritance of the Church, were demolished. I do, however, see that a balance should be kept in all these matters.

Meetings

Mr. Greenway: asked the hon. Member for Wokingham, as representing the Church Commissioners. when and where the Church Commissioners will next be meeting; and if he will make a statement.

Sir William van Straubenzee: The commissioners' board of governors and committees meet regularly and the annual general meeting of the commissioners will be held on 26 June this year at Lambeth palace.

Mr. Greenway: Will my hon. Friend invite the Church Commissioners at their next meeting to send a commendation, official of unofficial, to all those bishops who fought so valiantly in the other place to prevent the reduction in the divorce waiting period from three years to one year, thereby preserving the sanctity of marriage?

Sir William van Straubenzee: I know that the Church Commissioners as such have no responsibility for this measure, and I also know that many Anglicans were deeply upset by the somewhat intemperate words used about some of the bishops by my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor.

Mr. Cormack: When the commissioners next meet, will my hon. Friend think of inviting my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Beaumont-Dark) and other similar philistines so that the Church Commissioners can explain to them the enormous value of our historic churches and how men and women in succeeding ages have sought to express their worship and devotion in that way? Perhaps the philistine will be enlightened.

Sir William van Straubenzee: I am happy to say that, as my presence among them shows, the Church Commissioners are made up of all shades of opinion.

Mr. Ryman: Will the Church Commissioners be discussing the serious problem of low pay among clergy? Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, despite the increase in the size of parishes, the pay of clergy has remained abysmally low? Does he agree that, although pay has been increased periodically in the past five years, though only by very small sums, many clergy continue to suffer severe financial hardship in the present economic conditions?

Sir William van Straubenzee: I think that I would claim for the Church Commissioners that they have secured what might almost be described as a revolution in the levels of stipend and, equally important, pension over the last years. However, inherited income produces a decreasing proportion of the money necessary and, therefore, a heavier burden rightly falls each year on the laity of the Church of England.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE OF COMMONS

Working Temperatures

Mr. Speller: asked the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, as representing the House of Commons Commission, whether, in view of the discrepancy between temperatures recorded in the Central Lobby and the statutory maxima which apply elsewhere, he will discuss with the Property Services Agency the effect on the working conditions of the staff for whom he is responsible of the temperatures in the House.

Sir Paul Bryan: I have been asked to reply.
If a complaint about temperature levels in the offices of the House Departments shall arise, the Commission would expect it to be referred directly by the Department concerned to the Property Services Agency.

Mr. Speller: When my hon. Friend next consults the authorities, will he explain that the Committee Rooms, offices and many of the meeting rooms in this Palace are so superheated that they are 10 per cent. or more above the permitted maxima outside the Palace? At a time when we are seeking to save energy and costs, perhaps we should take some leave.

Sir Paul Bryan: My hon. Friend has real cause for complaint, but if he wishes to pursue the matter, it should not be done through the Commission, but direct with the PSA, which I know will help.

Mr. Marlow: Despite what my hon. Friend has said, may I sustain the complaint of my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Speller)? This place is much too hot. It should be about 10 degrees cooler. If some people feel too cold, they can always put more clothes on, but there is a limit to the number of clothes that one can take off.

Sir Paul Bryan: That is very valuable information, which I shall certainly pass on to the PSA and I shall explain with what vehemence it was put across. Of course, if the kitchen is too hot, one can always get out of it.

Oral Answers to Questions — THE ARTS

Northern Arts

Mr. Dormand: asked the Under-Secretary of State answering in respect of the Arts what proposals the Minister for the Arts has for increasing the resources available to Northern Arts.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. William Waldegrave): It is for the Arts Council to determine the allocation of its resources.

Mr. Dormand: Is the Minister aware that there has been a 5 per cent. increase in the allocation for Northern Arts, which is quite inadequate for the needs of the region? In view of the hammering that the Northern region takes from the economic policies of the Government, does the Minister agree that compensatory action in respect of the arts would be very helpful? As the Minister was willing to designate certain sums for opera, following the Priestley scrutiny, will he make representations for a similar exercise to be undertaken in the regions of the country, or at least for the three countries of Scotland, Wales and England?

Mr. Waldegrave: I shall, of course, report to my noble Friend what the hon. Member has said. My noble Friend is, indeed, meeting representatives of Northern Arts the day after tomorrow, having met them briefly last month, and he will undoubtedly be discussing these issues with them. I shall certainly pass on what the hon. Member has said.

Mr. Powley: While I note the claim of the hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Dormand) for extra resources for Northern Arts, may I ask my hon. Friend whether he is satisfied with the distribution of grants that are available to the area of East Anglia—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The question is about Northern Arts.

Mr. Meadowcroft: Has the Minister not yet made an estimate of the needs of the various regional arts associations, including Northern Arts? If by some mischance the Government's legislation to abolish the metropolitan counties is enacted, will he come to the House with some specific proposals to give hope to people in these regions about sustaining the arts?

Mr. Waldegrave: My noble Friend has put two of the biggest arts organisations in the northern area, the Laing gallery and Opera North, on the discussion paper list for central support. The subject which he will be discussing with Northern Arts is whether there is any need to go further in central funding. The role of the arts associations in the regime, after abolition of the metropolitan counties, is currently under discussion.

Mr. Ryman: With respect to the Minister's answer on Northern Arts, may I ask him whether he will kindly refrain from shirking his responsibilities and saying, in effect, that the matter is entirely for the Arts Council? The funding of Northern Arts has been grossly neglected by the Government. Cannot the Government take an initiative to increase funding for Northern Arts?

Mr. Waldegrave: I strongly rebut the idea that direct Government intervention in the affairs of the Arts Council would be a matter of my noble Friend carrying out his


proper "responsibilities". It is a fundamental principle of our subsidisation of the arts that the Arts Council operates at arm's length from the Government.

Elgin Marbles

Mr Canavan: asked the Under-Secretary of State answering in respect of the Arts whether the Government have yet come to a decision on the request by the Greek Government for the return of the Parthenon marbles.

Mr. Waldegrave: A formal reply to the Greek Government's request will be given soon.

Mr. Canavan: Is there any legal barrier to the return of the marbles? If there is, will the Government consider putting the matter to Parliament for a fresh decision so that we may make restitution to the Greek people for what Lord Elgin did at the beginning of the last century? After all, how would the Minister react if some foreign, aristocratic kleptomaniac stole the Crown jewels?

Mr. Waldegrave: I am beginning to find it difficult to think of new neutral replies on this subject. There is a legal bar to the return of the Elgin marbles in the British Museum Act.

Mr. Cormack: Does my hon. Friend agree that whereas the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan) are at liberty to do what they like with their own marbles, they are not free to dispose of other people's?

Mr. Waldegrave: I think that it missed the attention of the Leader of the Opposition that the marbles did not belong to him. Perhaps the Welsh national gallery, which has a famous collection of Monets, will be a little nervous in case the right hon. Gentleman goes to France for his next holiday.

Mr. David Atkinson: Had the request for the return of the Elgin marbles come from the Greek military Government to a British Labour Government, does my right hon. Friend think that the response of the Leader of the Opposition would have been rather different from his surrender to the siren charms of Melina Mercouri?

Mr. Waldegrave: I dread to contemplate what the right hon. Gentleman might think up under different circumstances. It is difficult enough to keep up with him under the present ones.

Artistic Objects (Provenance)

Mr. Renton: asked the Under-Secretary of State answering in respect of the Arts what percentage of artistic objects held in British national collections have their provenance in other countries within the European Community.

Mr. Waldegrave: It would not be possible to assemble this information without disproportionate cost. But the proportion is undoubtedly a large one, and many of the objects in question are important parts of the national heritage.

Mr. Renton: Following the replies just given by my hon. Friend, does he not see the Leader of the Opposition as perhaps starting an important new initiative in this difficult year for EEC reform? If, for example, we gave the Gutenberg bibles back to Germany but asked for the

Bayeux tapestry from France, who knows what might happen in the EEC in this difficult year—or does my hon. Friend think that the Leader of the Opposition is merely campaigning to give Stonehenge back to the native Welsh mountains from which it was hewn?

Mr. Waldegrave: I think that the right hon. Gentleman was not rationally campaigning in any direction as much as being carried away by enthusiasm. But if anyone went into the National Gallery, he would have to reach room 34 before finding any British school works of art. We have quite a number of rooms to return to different places round the world.

Museums (Admission Charges)

Mr. Murphy: asked the Under-Secretay of State answering in respect of the Arts whether the Minister for the Arts has had any discussions with the trustees of national museums about the reintroduction of admission charges.

Mr. Waldegrave: My noble Friend has had no general discussions on this subject. He is considering with the national maritime museum the implications of its proposal to introduce admission charges from 1 April 1984.

Mr. Murphy: Does my hon. Friend agree that realistic admission charges, retained by the museums, would provide a valuable additional source of finance and should be encouraged?

Mr. Waldegrave: It remains the Government's policy that if the trustees of any museum wish to put forward proposals they will be discussed with them.

Mr. Tony Banks: If the Government's proposals for the abolition of the GLC go through, what will be the position of the Horniman museum? The Government's proposals are that it should be transferred to the British museum. Bearing in mind that the Horniman museum was given to the old London county council in perpetuity as a free museum, what will be the policy if the: British museum decides to introduce an admission charge?

Mr. Waldegrave: The trustees of the British museum in those circumstances would put forward proposals. Presumably if that was not in the foundation charter of the Horniman museum, they would not put forward such proposals.

Mr. Rhodes James: Has my hon. Friend had discussions on this matter with the trustees of the five university museums, whose needs and problems are still inadequately appreciated by the Government?

Mr. Waldegrave: I remember from my previous job the problems of the university museums and their relationship with the University Grants Committee. I shall draw those continuing problems to the attention not only of my noble Friend but, more directly, of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science.

Mr. Meadowcroft: Does the Minister accept that at a time of great unemployment it would be better to encourage people to go to museums instead of trying to put restrictions in their way in the form of any charge for admission?

Mr. Waldegrave: It is a matter for the people who are running the museums. Ironically, many of the exhibitions


for which there are charges are exceedingly well attended. If trustees of museums think it in their best interests to make such proposals, it would be wrong of the Government not to consider them seriously.

Elgin Marbles

Mr. David Atkinson: asked the Under-Secretary of State answering in respect of the Arts what is Her Majesty's Government's response to the request of the Greek Government for the return of the Elgin Marbles.

Mr. Waldegrave: I refer my hon. Friend to my reply earlier today.

Mr. Atkinson: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Greek Government's request would have been more credible if it had landed on the desks of the Governments of all nine countries that hold Elgin marbles?

Mr. Waldegrave: It is perhaps a little confusing to say "hold Elgin marbles". It would perhaps be better to say "hold parts of the Parthenon marbles". The point is well taken. There are several other European countries which have significant parts of the marbles which were formerly on the Parthenon.

Mr. Ray Powell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I draw your attention to the inadequate time that we

have had at Welsh Question Time to deal with the number of important questions that are down on the Order Paper today, particularly those dealing with unemployment? Will you give serious consideration to extending Welsh Question Time?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The amount of time for Welsh questions is a matter for the usual channels. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was present earlier when we were discussing questions Nos. 1 and 2, but I allowed a fairly long run on the subject of the Welsh water authority, and I then said that we would have to get on. As a matter of interest to the hon. Gentleman, and perhaps to other Welsh Members, I think I managed, with the exception of the hon. Member for Clwyd, South-West (Mr. Harvey), to ensure that every hon. Member with a question on the Order Paper was called.

Mr. Tony Banks: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker, and in support of it. Would it not be better, in view of the growing interest in Arts Question Time, if a special time allocation were made for the Arts that was somewhat longer than we have at present? That would allow a longer time for Welsh questions.

Mr. Speaker: I say again that the allocation of time is a matter for the usual channels.

Redundancies (Leicester)

Mr. Greville Janner: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 10, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
redundancies at BXL Plastics Ltd and Davis Manufacturing Ltd in the city of Leicester
in my constituency.
The matter is specific, because it refers to redundancies at those two plants and at sister plants in the area. The managing director of BXL Plastics Limited informed me, to use his words, that due to the
major restructuring of our plastics bottles business located at Leicester",
some 150 redundancies are likely to occur. The other firm, Davis, is due to be closed.
The matter is important because it is cumulative. It adds to the awful total of redundancies that has been announced in the past few months in Leicester—in particular, 924 for the area since the beginning of last month. It is cumulative in a city that was once the second most prosperous in Europe. Since this Government came to power, unemployment in the city has been well over 20 per cent.—and, in parts of my constituency, over 60 per cent. According to the latest figures that are available—they have been provided by the Government, and apply only to October 1982—since the Government came to power, unemployment has gone up by 177 per cent., and the percentage of people unemployed for more than 52 weeks rose by over 222·6 per cent. That was 14 months ago.
The matter is urgent because the hour is late, and the citizens of Leicester carry an intolerable burden of unemployment, substantially as a result of the inept, awful and incompetent way in which this Government have treated the matter.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. and learned Gentleman asks leave to the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he thinks should have urgent consideration, namely,
redundancies at BXL Plastics Ltd. and Davis Manufacturing Limited in the city of Leicester.
I listened very carefully to what the hon. and learned Member said, but I regret that I do not consider that the matter he has raised is appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 10. I cannot, therefore, submit his application to the House.

FOSDYKE BRIDGE BILL [Lords]

Ordered,
That the Fosdyke Bridge Bill [Lords] be referred to a Second Reading Committee.—[Mr. Garel-Jones.]

SOMERSET HOUSE BILL [Lords]

Ordered,
That the Somerset House Bill [Lords] be referred to a Second Reading Committee.—[Mr. Garel-Jones.]

Organ Transplants

Sir John Biggs-Davison: I beg to move,
That this House notes the increasing need of human organs for transplants, which exceeds the supply; pledges its support to the campaign to be launched by Her Majesty's Government to encourage donors; and meanwhile calls for a more systematic distribution of donor cards to the public; appeals to the Press Council and the broadcasting authorities and journalists to respect the anonymity of those donors and their relatives who desire it; and requests Her Majesty's Government to institute an appropriate form of inquiry into the desirability of replacing the present system of 'opting in' by those who are willing to give organs for transplant under proper safeguards by a system of `opting out' by those who are unwilling to do so.
Incredible though it may seem, although I have had the honour to represent an Essex constituency since 1955, this is the first time that I have been successful in the ballot for private Members' motions. For some years I have been canvassing the idea that an hon. Member who is successful in the ballot should withdraw from further ballots held in the current Parliament to give others more of a chance to succeed. No Select Committee on Procedure seems to agree with me, but many hon. Members think it a very good idea. Indeed, I hasten to assure them that, although I have been fortunate in the ballot, I shall not go back on that suggestion. I should be happy for my name to be removed, if that would help other hon. Members.

Mr. Michael Meadowcroft: The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell).

Sir John Biggs-Davison: Indeed, the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) is a case in point.
I address the House in the knowledge that there are those who have much more to tell me about the subject of the motion than I could possibly tell them. I look forward to their interventions, and am also grateful for the presence in the Chamber of the Under-Secretary of State. I speak on the subject not only with diffidence but with an inward reluctance or even repugnance. However, when I hear of someone whose life has been prolonged or whose health has been revived by an organ transplant, most of my inhibitions are removed. I think of a retired nurse who lived alone not far from Epping, with a kidney machine for company. When I saw her she would tell me of hopes raised and dashed over that which could give her back a more normal and active life.
The subject of organ transplants touches the deepest human feelings. As a Catholic Christian, I find no religious objection to the offering of human organs for the rescue or relief of others. Of course, there are those with conscientious objections to the contrary. In 1982, a public opinion survey showed that under 18 per cent. of the population had objections in principle, but, however many or few the objectors may be, they should not be reproached for holding their sincere views.
At present, the most pressing need is for kidney donors.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: In connection with previous attempted legislation, I went to see the late Cardinal Heenan, who made it quite clear that the Roman Catholic hierarchy had no objections at all. In fact, there were no religious objections other than from certain advisers of Sir Immanuel Jakobovits and the Board of


Deputies of British Jews. However, Israel has a law along the lines of the legislation that the hon. Gentleman rightly wishes to introduce.

Sir John Biggs-Davison: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for those comments. He has done a lot of work on the subject and has attempted to legislate. I shall refer to that later. I quite agree that there is no objection from the main Christian bodies. In France, the contracting-out law was passed with the approval not only of the Catholic heirarchy but of the reformed churches and Jewish and Moslem leaders. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman is quite right, and I am grateful to him for drawing that point to our attention.
According to the Secretary of State for Social Services,
The provisional total
of kidney transplants in 1983
was 1,160, an increase of about 13 per cent. over
the 1982 figure, itself a record. My right hon. Friend was replying to a written question from my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs). He described the advance as "encouraging" and added:
but with over 2,400 patients awaiting a transplant there remains an urgent need to increase the number still further. The limiting factor is still the supply of kidneys. We shall shortly be launching a new publicity campaign to increase public awareness of the need for transplantation and encourage the widest use of the organ donor card." — [Official Report, 20 January 1984; Vol. 52, c. 330.]
I welcome that campaign, and it is to be hoped that Members of both Houses of Parliament will assist in it to the best of their ability. Perhaps an exhibition in the Upper Waiting Hall would help as a start.
The latest kidney waiting list totals 2,460, although not only kidneys are required. Of course, every surgical success means that more patients can benefit; therefore, the demand increases.
The transplant of corneas has a longer history. A corneal transplant exchange service was inaugurated last year, financed initially by the Iris Fund, a charity. Liver transplantation is becoming familiar and established, and is being considered by the DHSS for supra-regional funding.
Finding livers for small children is a distinct matter. The size of the liver is important. In this connection it is pleasant to be able to praise a television programme—Esther Rantzen's "That's Life"—which by featuring the case of Ben Hardwick did more good than another BBC programme had done harm.
The latest report on Ben Hardwick that I have received is that, with wonderful nursing, and although still in isolation, he is doing well. I thought that hon. Members would like to have an up-to-date report on a case that has attracted much sympathetic attention.
There is more controversy about heart transplants. I understand that the Department is funding an evaluation of the costs and benefits. Britain's first heart and lung transplant was carried out last year. The transplantation of heart valves, pancreases and various other organs and tissues is also being developed.
It was good sense—it was called for in this House and elsewhere—to replace the 1980 kidney donor card with a multi-organ donor card. The number of cards held by the public has increased, but it sometimes seems to me that the distribution is haphazard. Alhough more cards

may have been given out, I very much doubt whether they are constantly in the pockets or the handbags of the holders.
With the weakness of the system in mind, Manchester univeristy offered a computer to the north-west health region. Perhaps the Minister will have something to say about that.
I am told that not only the laity but the profession is ill-informed and uninstructed, which gives point to the campaign ahead. I have also been told that there is ignorance in one hospital of what happens in another.
March 1983 saw the publication of the Government's
revised code of practice for doctors on organ tranplantation, including guidance on diagnosis of brain death.
In a written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey), the Minister for Health expressed the hope that
the new version will resolve any doubts about procedures and the requirements of the law.
He continued:
My main object, of course, is to ensure that we can treat as many patients as possible who need transplants of kidneys, corneas or other organs and that no unnecessary confusion or hesitation reduces the supply of donor organs … one of the reasons for the continuing shortage of organs for transplant is hesitancy on the part of hospital staff to identify potential donors among their dying patients and uncertainty about the procedures that must be followed to lead to transplantation. I believe the code is clear, helpful and sensitive and should increase the supply of organs for transplantation, particularly kidneys.
Indeed, there has been an increase. My right hon. And learned Friend continued:
The revised code emphasises the care with which relatives of a deceased person should be interviewed to establish their views. The need to maintain confidentiality is brought out more strongly. It suggests that the person who makes the approach should be senior and have experience of personal interviews of a sensitive nature. Any approaches should be made with proper sensitivity and a feeling for the relative's distress. Approaches to the parents of a dead child need a particularly high standard of sensitivity and tact." — [Official Report, 10 March 1983; Vol. 38, c. 485.]
Publicity is essential to the cause that I promote—publicity about how the public and the profession can help. My motion urges the mass media to respect the confidentiality of those involved. My right hon. And learned Friend the Minister for Health attached importance to confidentiality in the written answer that I quoted. Only a week before that statement, my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) had been angered by the activities of the media, especially certain newspapers, with regard to a constituent who had been killed in a car accident. A heart transplant had been carried out, and the donor's family wished to remain anonymous. Yet they were harried and disgracefully treated by certain reporters. Police had to be posted and the victim's telephone made indefinitely ex-directory.
My hon. Friend called for legislation to protect confidentiality. Obviously, that is difficult. Therefore, my motion calls on the broadcasting authorities, the Press Council and the media, in common decency, to ensure that such callousness does not occur.
In announcing the new code of practice, my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health referred to the notorious "Panorama" programme in October 1980 — which was as unfair to the medical profession as a more recent programme was scurrilously defamatory of the Conservative party and my hon. Friends. Doctors were condemned in the very title of the programme:
Transplants: Are the donors really dead?


That was calculated to arouse the greatest fear and disquiet. It was even suggested that brain death had been invented for the benefit of transplant surgeons. Those allegations were quickly disproved, but the effect of the programme was to reduce organ donation by about 65 per cent. of the expected level for the next six months. The British Medical Journal even accused the BBC of having deaths on its conscience.
However, some have taken comfort from the increased public awareness of the nature of brain death, but there is bound to be some lingering suspicion that, in the words of Professor Bryan Jennett of Glasgow:
transplant surgeons, in their understandable impatience to deliver effective care, sometimes overplay their hands. Attitudes cannot be changed by edict or statute. It is a matter of transplant surgeons locally establishing a relationship of trust and respect with clinicians who may have potential donors. Transplant co-ordinators can be helpful. But so is taking care about practical details on site. These include ensuring rapid and courteous responses to offers, and sensitivity and skill on the part of those who come to take out the organs, and remembering to send a thank you note with information about how particular organs were eventually used. On a broader front there is need to see that details of the success rate of transplantation are known — including local, National and International figures.

Mr. Dalyell: Bryan Jennett, professor of neurosurgery at Glasgow, has talked to me endlessly about this. The hon. Gentleman and I face the difficulty that, if we put forward a proposal such as he suggests, we must be absolutely sure that the establishment of clinical death is accepted by the public. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if an organ is to be taken clinical death must be established by two doctors, neither of whom is a transplant surgeon likely to operate on another patient?

Sir John Biggs-Davison: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I believe that the revised code of practice is satisfactory in that respect.
The professor referred to "transplant co-ordinators". In a written answer to the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) on 30 November 1983, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State said:
We are also funding as a pilot project the appointment of a number of consultants to act as part-time transplant advisers with the job of improving hospital liaison procedures."—[Official Report, 30 November 1983; c. 537.]
I mentioned the lack of proper liaison, so perhaps the Minister will let us know how that pilot project is going.
Finally, there is the difficult question whether people should have to contract out of giving organs after death rather than contracting in. The present law is a combination of the two. The governing statute is the Human Tissue Act 1961, which provides that a person or institution, including a hospital but not an undertaker or the proprietor of a crematorium, lawfully in possession of a body, may authorise the removal of organs after death provided there is no reason to believe that the deceased expressed an objection while alive nor any reason to suppose, after reasonable and practicable inquiries, that a relative would object. When one translates those cold words into the agony of a patient whose only child has just been killed on the road, it is very difficult to request organs from a parent in that dreadful situation. It must also be remembered that kidneys deteriorate rapidly and soon become useless.
I have heard a different view, however. The huge public response to the "That's Life" programme has shown that many relatives felt that the saving of another's life or health by a transplant gave, or might have given, solace

to their grief. There were those who only wished that they had been asked. A common reaction is to say, "I should have felt that he had not died for nothing." It may be— do not know—that medical staff are more reluctant to ask than people are to agree.
However that may be, ii has been argued that there should be a contracting-out system. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) for his tenacity in introducing several Bills to that effect. I have already described the weaknesses of the donor card system. In Austria, Denmark and France, the system is entirely one of contracting out. This perhaps reflects the difference between our own and a less sentimental nation, but the French loi Caillart was approved unanimously by both the National Assembly and the Senate in 1976. As I have said., not only Christian bodies but Jewry and Islam in France accepted the principle of organ removal to save life. There was little comment in the newspapers, and the law was well received by the public. I am told that in France, in practice, if they have an opportunity to approach relatives without adding to their distress, doctors will discuss the matter with them and will not then go against the wishes of the next of kin.
Various schemes have been suggested by which objectors to organ grafting could register their names and those of their dependants on a central register. 'The computer would always be consulted before removal of an organ from a dead body, and if the name of the deceased or his family was not recorded it would be assumed that there was no objection. That is the proposal that is being put forward.
The question is a very delicate one. Personal liberty is regarded differently here and on the Continent. It casts no slur on anyone to say that error and human fallibility cannot be wholly ruled out. It would be essential to public confidence to exclude any commercial element.
In the British Medical Journal of 3 April 1982, Professor R. Y. Calne who performed the operation that I have referred to on the small boy, said:
The facts should speak for themselves. Organ transplantation is an essential part of the treatment of renal failure and other life-threatening disorders and the supply of donor organs must be improved. Britain has a proud record of generous help for those suffering and in need and this charitable tradition should be preserved.
I would be the last person to dogmatise on this matter, but I trust that my motion will be accepted in its entirety by the House, and welcomed by the Government. After the full inquiry that has been asked for, it may be possible, if Parliament approves, to adapt foreign experience and the model laws emanating from the Council of Europe to the United Kingdom, in order to relieve suffering and save life.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: As the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison) has recalled, I have attempted on eight occasions, through the ten minutes rule procedure, to get through a contracting-out Bill. This is a non-party matter. The Minister may be interested to know that among my first sponsors were Baroness Pike, who was at that time chairman of the Conservative party health committee, and the late Sir Malcolm Stoddart-Scott, as well as some of my senior colleagues—Lord Houghton, Barbara Castle and Dick Crossman—two of whom were at one time Secretary of


State for Social Services. There was therefore heavyweight support at that time for a measure such as the hon. Gentleman has proposed.
On 3 March 1978 I was lucky in winning the ballot for private Member's time, and, like the hon. Member for Epping Forest, I chose this subject. By that time the politicians had become more cautious and David Ennals—now Lord Ennals—gave a cautious and careful reply to the proposal for an opting-out scheme. It was argued that there had been some change in opinion, which made opinion more cautious. The truth of the matter — although it is improper to do so, I should like to address my remarks to the Minister and to his officials—is that in the late 1960s, in the light of the McLennan report, the atmosphere was one of acceptance of what had been done in other countries. It was my impression that Sir George Godber, the chief medical officer, and several of his colleagues—I had better be careful here as I am not at all sure that Sir Henry Yellowlees would agree with this—were of the opinion that a contracting-out Bill would be possible. It is my judgment that had a Labour Government been returned in 1970 and Dick Crossman, whose Parliamentary Private Secretary I was, still been in the job at the Elephant and Castle, such legislation would have been brought forward.
My early interest in this matter, like that of many other right hon. and hon. Members, arose out of a constituency case. A 23-year-old teacher at a school in which I worked, whose parents were my constituents, could not get a transplant and died for want of matching tissue. The point of my argument is that the people about whom we are talking often have the expectation of a full working life. We are not dealing with people who have already had the best part of their life. The people affected are often 20 or 30-year-olds who could be put right if there was matching tissue. It is vital that as wide a variety of matching tissue as possible be available. The teacher to whom I have referred—Grant Allen—was in one of the rarer blood groups. I understand that it is much more difficult to get a transplant for such people. Therefore, if a wide variety of tissue is available, it is much more likely that those who have less prominent blood groups will be able to benefit.
We must face up to an awkward argument—that of freedom. I know that, when the present Secretary of State for Education and Science was responsible for these matters, he considered one of the ten-minute Bills extremely carefully, Indeed, I think it is true to say that he agonised over it. His reluctance arose because of curtailment of freedom, on the argument that, although people have the right to opt out, they might not know of that right. The basis of the contracting-out scheme was that, through computer facilities, anyone who did not want his organs to be taken was entitled to register to that effect on a computer in Bristol. I hope that the Minister will say something about the logistics of that, and how expensive it would be. My understanding is that such registration creates no financial or logistical difficulties. However, it creates a difficulty which we should not shirk—that of the person who does not, for personal or other reasons, want his organs taken, but does not get round to opting out.
The reverse side of the coin is that, with all the good will in the world and the publicity given to kidney donor cards, most of us do not contemplate our own demise. It

is never this afternoon that we shall be killed in a motor-cycle accident or step under a bus. On that basis, many people do not bother to carry their kidney donor cards. The hon. Member for Epping Forest no doubt gets huge correspondence on this matter as well. Out of sheer carelessness, people may not carry their cards. It is only human to imagine that it is other people who will be killed and that it is only to other people that accidents happen. Because of that attitude, the reward in terms of organs from kidney donor cards has been disappointing, in spite of massive Government publicity for them.
There are many aspects to the argument of freedom. One is the pressure which is put on doctors. One of the arguments advanced in favour of the contracting-out scheme is that a doctor should not be asked, having sweated his proverbial guts out to save a life, to expend energy going to the parents or next of kin of a person whose life he has tried to save to ask the awful question, "Can we have the organs of your loved one?" The doctor is asking that question at a time of maximum grief.
If I am asked why I am so fanatical about this subject, the answer lies with my going with Dick Crossman to a hospital in the east end of London and seeing a doctor having to contact relatives to ask for the kidneys of, I believe, a 21-year-old lad who had been killed in a motor-cycle accident. It was a ministerial visit. I went as a Parliamentary Private Secretary and it might be recorded in the Department. If, as a bolt from the blue, one discovers that a relative has suddenly been killed, that is not the moment to have to answer an extremely personal and difficult question. I have letters from people who say that they were asked whether the organs of John, James or Helen could be taken, but of course they refused and they now deeply regret it. The decision should be taken—it is not a happy expression—in cold blood and not at a time of maximum grief.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. John Patten): I share the hon. Gentleman's opinion that doctors' attitudes are critical. Does he accept that, despite the fact that doctors have a potential donor—perhaps on a life-support machine—who carries a donor card, they still approach relatives, as they have profound feelings that the ethical considerations demand that the relatives be asked

Mr. Dalyell: If there is a donor card, whose decision is it? The matter raises difficult philosophical questions. There are differences of opinion among transplant surgeons. Roy Calne, with whom I have talked at great length, takes one view. The Minister's constituent, Peter Morris, with whom I talked briefly on the telephone on Saturday night and who is the professor of surgery at Oxford, takes a more cautious view. Bryan Sells and several others hold yet another view. It does our cause no good not to concede that the transplant surgeons are not united in favour of the opting-out scheme. My point is that to ask a doctor to expend energy, having gone through trying to save a life, is asking a great deal of him. On the whole, these things should be done automatically.
If a person carries a donor card, some of us would argue that it is up to the individual to decide what happens to his or her organs. I can understand that well. What worries Ministers—as it must do—is public opinion. I am sure that the public attitudes to kidney donation according to the Marplan report will be quoted by the Minister, and it


is right and proper that they should be. However, I am not happy about the way in which the Marplan survey was done, because the questions are highly personal and delicate.
I do not wish to be arrogant, but in the wake of the McLennan committee report and a good "Panorama" programme about the McLennan committee in the late 1960s, I spent 42 days during the summer of 1969 visiting 1,000 families in the West Lothian constituency and asking them questions about that precise problem. I did it partly because Dick Crossman was anxious that some survey should be done and partly because Sir George Godber with whom I agreed strongly, put it that those questions were best asked, not by a random surveyor, but by someone who should at least be known by name to the people being asked the questions. All hon. Members have trusted constituency relationships, people who are willing to talk freely to them. The result of the survey for the contracting-out proposal was that 364 would have agreed to any organ being taken, 312 would have preferred to volunteer first, and 116, including three state registered nurses were totally against transplantations. The SRNs all said on separate occasions, "If you want to take organs, you must make sure that you have enough money for hernias and other simple operations first." There is the whole question of the expense of transplantation surgery in relation to the other problems of the Department. The other 208 in the survey were genuine "don't knows", including some who had thought about it most.
I got the impression from that survey in industrial central Scotland that resistance to taking organs is not nearly as great as politicians have generally assumed. I am bound to say, however, that I speak of kidneys, livers and corneas—the heart may be different. We must face the fact that for many people—they may not be medically rational, but they believe this and their belief is to be respected—the heart is different. I shall sum up that feeling in the rather sweet and quiet way in which one old lady said to me, "Yes, I would go along with kidneys, corneas and livers but, Mr. Dalyell, my heart belongs to my husband and my husband is dead." That is the old idea of heart and soul, and we should not deride it. We must be careful on deeply sensitive matters to distinguish between the heart, the kidneys and corneas and the personality organs. As no one contemplates doing brain transplants yet, let us not involve ourselves with that. We should not automatically assume that the Marplan survey, which was taken by people less sensitive than me when I took my survey, is necessarily right.
I was involved in a programme called "You, the Jury". It is a BBC format, with which the Minister is presumably fairly familiar. It was about the arguments for and against transplantations. The people on the programme had to call two witnesses. One of my witnesses was Keith Castle—the longest surviving British heart transplant case. He is a symbol of hope for thousands; not only for heart transplant patients, but also for kidney and liver transplant patients. Keith Castle, those around him and the father, who shall be nameless, whose son's heart was donated to Keith Castle—the father, a well-known public figure, wrote and talked to me freely about it—were immensely glad that it had been done. They were glad because it gave hope to many people who were suffering from a defect that would lead to death unless action were taken.
I could go on and on, but I await with interest what the Minister and other hon. Members have to say. I beg the

Government to hold the inquiry for which the hon. Gentleman asks and to consider seriously the arguments put forward by politicians right across the party spectrum, and by people like Roy Calne, Sir Michael Woodroff and those engaged in the task of saving worthwhile lives with a prospect of a life's work ahead.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. John Patten): I thought it might be convenient for the House if I caught your eye early in the course of the debate, Mr. Speaker, to set out the Government's views on the important topic raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison). The Government welcome the initiative taken by my hon. Friend in moving the motion. We welcome the tone and the tenor of what he has said and we accept almost all that the motion sets out to achieve, although I have a qualification about the opting-out system, of which I shall say more later.
I am glad that my hon. Friend's initiative has enabled the House to debate these important and sensitive human issues. I am equally glad that the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) is present this afternoon. One of his private Member's Bills in 1978, which was introduced in the House before I was a Member, first aroused my interest in kidney transplants and the importance of carrying kidney donor cards. It was not brought to fruition in my case — here I share an interest with my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest in the affairs of Northern Ireland—until I visited the excellent renal unit in Belfast city hospital in 1981. I pay tribute to the work done there, and to the work in similar renal units in Britain. This afternoon, we shall discuss not only kidney transplants, but the transplant of all organs that can benefit and prolong human life.
Medical and surgical techniques have developed greatly during the past few years, and it is now possible to improve the quality of the lives of patients suffering from a variety of conditions and, indeed, to save lives by organ transplants—in some cases rather more cheaply and in many cases rather more surely than even a few years ago. We must all welcome that. Advances as rapid as we have seen in the past few years inevitably increase demand—that goes without saying—as does attendant publicity and that inevitably puts a strain on the system. Beds, theatre space and skilled staff are all necessary. But for organ transplants the main factor that limits expansion has little to do with money and everything to do with the availability of organs. Increasing the availability of donor organs is a matter of changing public attitudes. That is something to which my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest and the hon. Member for Linlithgow have drawn attention, and it should be the main focus of the debate. I reiterate that the organs that are so desperately needed in increasing numbers are kidneys, corneas, hearts and livers.
I turn first to the critical problem of increasing the supply of donor kidneys—a matter that concerns many hon. Members and has done for a number of years. Expanding facilities for the treatment of end stage renal failure is a priority for the Government, and we have made that clear to health authorities. But—it is a big "but"— taking that into account, and hoping for the advances that we wish to see, for most kidney patients a transplant is the


best form of treatment. It has the added advantage of releasing dialysis facilities for the treatment of other patients.
I am happy to say that in recent years progress on this front has been encouraging. In 1982, for the first time, more than 1,000 transplants were performed in the United Kingdom. I am pleased to report to the House that the provisional figures for 1983 suggest a 13 per cent. improvement in the numbers of kidneys transplanted, with the total reaching 1,160, which is a new record. International statistics for 1981 and 1982, which are the most recently available, show that more kidney transplants were carried out in the United Kingdom than were carried out in any other European country.

Mr. Tony Banks: Despite the pleasing statistics that the Minister has just given us, can he tell us why in West Germany, which is comparable to the United Kingdom, there are about 11,000 patients on haemodialysis, whereas in Britain there are only 3,500 patients? The Minister said earlier that it is not a matter of money, but I suggest that it is.

Mr. John Patten: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman if I was not entirely clear. I said that the availability of organs was important in transplantation, but that the availability of extra money was of little, if no importance. Of course money is an issue in dialysis. The Government are well aware—they have been constantly reminded of it by hon. Members on both sides of the House—of the need to improve facilities. Therefore, this year we have issued a circular to all 14 health authorities asking them to consider the better provision of hospital haemodialysis and other forms of dialysis treatment. After discussions during the next few weeks, we shall set new targets that must be achieved during a finite period. However, that is a wider issue than we have had the opportunity to debate in the House on many occasions.
The waiting list for a kidney transplant is still long, at about 2,700. Experience suggests that, even if the transplantation rate is increased, as we hope, the waiting list will be a problem, since improvements in surgical and medical techniques will mean that doctors are likely to consider a higher proportion of patients than was the case two or three years ago as being suitable for transplantation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest and the hon. Member for Linlithgow agree that the facilities for increasing the number of transplant operations already exist in most renal transplant units; what is needed now is not more cash, but more donors. In the near future, the Government, like successive Governments of both political colours, will launch a publicity campaign to try to increase the awareness of the general public of the need to carry an organ donor card, once they have made the difficult decision to carry that card and once they have discussed with their families and relatives why they are doing it. The publicity material will be sent to all health authorities, to general practitioners and to dispensing pharmacists, asking them to display it to maximum effect.
I hope that the House will be greatly encouraged, as I have been, by the positive response from other organisations which we have asked to become involved in the campaign. Those organisations include professional and commercial groups, charitable and voluntary organisations and community groups. To cite one

example, the National Union of Students came forward willingly to offer its publicity machinery to disseminate the idea of carrying a multi-organ donor card through colleges and universities. If people get the habit young, they are likely to continue with it. I am also grateful to a major credit card company, Barclaycard, which has circulated in its February newsletter, which reaches 3·5 million people, two copies of a multi-organ donor card. A range of other organisations have stated that they will join the publicity campaign to be launched by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and myself towards the end of this month.
The campaign is not just about carrying the card and the numbers of cards circulated. It will concentrate on the way in which organ donation can benefit ordinary people, and on how helpful it is to doctors and hospital staff if bereaved relatives have prepared themselves in good time for being asked for their consent to the removal of an organ from a loved one whom they have lost. That is a very difficult time, as the hon. Member for Linlithgow graphically portrayed to the House.
My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest said that organ transplantation is most effective if the organs are removed immediately after death. Doctors must handle the request for the consent of relatives, who are shocked and upset, very sensitively. Our hope is that more and more people will come to see organ donation as a positive act that can salvage something from the tragedy of an unexpected death, and that the act will therefore help friends and relatives at a time of bereavement rather than be a cause of concern to them.
With that in mind, I was interested to read an excellent article by Dr. Michael O'Donnell in The Guardian of 8 February. He talks abut the tragic death of a young man, David Evans — a 20-year-old geophysics graduate at Liverpool university, who donated his body so that others could benefit. Dr. O'Donnell writes:
His parents, Margaret and John Evans, physicists living near Cambridge, have started an organisation to represent the views of relatives of transplant donors.
Dr. O'Donnell makes the important point:
Their campaign will have a powerful emotional impact, organised as it is not by surgeons or by patients who would benefit from transplant sugery, but the relatives of organ donors most of whom died suddenly and in tragic circumstances.
The article also refers to an interesting idea put forward by a former president of the Royal College of Physicians, Sir Cyril Clarke, who
suggested recently that if the death, and the chance of life it offered to another person, were commemorated in some lasting way, say by the planting of a tree or by establishing a similar memorial, the very act of commemoration would do much to assuage one element of the parents' grief. They would have a permanent memorial that their child's life was not wholly wasted, that their child's death was not a wholly negative event that had destroyed everything and achieved nothing.
How right that is.
The transplantation of corneas may not have such a life-or-death element, but it still contains some elements of sensitivity. The transplantation of corneas can restore sight, and the removal of donor corneas is a much simpler procedure than the removal of, for example, donor kidneys, because in most cases donors and recipients do not need to be matched for blood group and tissue type. That is helpful in a proportion of high-risk cases.
The Government welcomed the launching in September 1983 of the corneal transplant service, which is operated by the United Kingdom transplant service. Achievements


in the first six months of its operation have been impressive. During that time 59 cornea transplants have been arranged but more donor corneas are needed to ensure that matched corneas are available for all who need them.
I should like at this stage to pay tribute to the United Kingdom transplant service. It keeps a register of all patients awaiting a kidney transplant and, during the past six months, a register of all those awaiting a corneal transplant, so that whenever a donor organ becomes available, it can be matched with the patient on the waiting list. The new technology to which the hon. Member for Linlithgow referred is becoming of increasing importance in that matching.
The service then arranges for the donor organ to be transplanted as quickly as possible. It also keeps records of all transplant operations and is building a data bank of expertise in the two important areas of kidney and corneal transplants. It monitors the patient's progress. That is important in the evaluation of transplant operations and in determining the efficacy of those important but advanced areas of medical science. The United Kingdom transplant service is efficient and cost-effective. It has played an important part in maintaining our good record in renal transplantation. We are pleased that we have up-to-date statistics. It means that we have helpful information about the number of operations performed and the progress that patients make. It is helping with the development of kidney and cornea transplantation.
I should also like to stress the importance of research. It is difficult to evaluate now but it may have long-term benefits, some of them flowing from the admirable work of the national kidney research fund. We hope that the long-term value of its research will be considerable.
Kidney and corneal transplantation techniques are accepted throughout the National Health Service. We move from there to where techniques are not wholly accepted throughout the National Health Service—heart transplantation and, most recently, liver transplantation, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest has graphically referred.
Heart transplantation is still at a relatively early stage of development. We are now about two thirds of the way through the research study that we commissioned some time ago to evaluate the costs and benefits of the two important heart transplantation programmes at Papworth and Harefield hospitals. We are awaiting final evaluation of the scheme. We expect to receive the report towards the end of 1984. We shall then be able to decide the place of heart transplantation within the framework of the clinical strategy in the National Health Service in the longer term. The interim report was received just before Christmas. The findings were encouraging. They point to increased patient survival and an improved quality of life for those who have had transplant operations.
On the basis of that interim report, my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health a few days ago announced continuing central funding for 1984–85 for the programmes at Papworth and Harefield hospitals. It totals almost £500,000 and will enable the work to continue until the evaluation of the transplant scheme has been completed.
The work depends on the continuing availability of donor hearts. The hon. Member for Linlithgow raised an interesting philosophical point. He talked about the problematical decisions that must be taken by the National Health Service in evaluating expenditure. I believe that he

was hinting at the equation between expenditure on high-cost and high-technology medicine, and lower-cost, lower-technology medicine. It does us no good, on whichever side of the House we sit, to suggest that such decisions can be made easily and that a bit more money is all that is needed. The problem is rather more fundamental. It is to the credit of successive Secretaries of State for Social Services and Ministers of Health—I think of the noble lord, Lord Ennals, of the late Mr. Richard Crossman, to whom the hon. Member for Linlithgow was Parliamentary Private Secretary, and of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) when he was Minister of Health in the 1960s—that they were all concerned with expenditure but also with medical advances. That pinpoints the dilemma of reaching for the correct balance between available money and how it should be spent. Is it to be spent on the higher technology medicine at the frontiers, or can greater good be achieved by doing more lower technology operations? Those dilemmas are not easily wished away or solved solely by calls for more money.
More expenditure is not what is needed for liver transplantations, which is the last subject to which I wish to refer. There has been considerable publicity about liver transplantation during the last 10 days arising from the case of young Ben Hardwick. My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest referred to the television programme. It must be made clear to the House, and through the House to the public, that liver transplantation is much more difficult than kidney transplantation. At present it is performed in only three centres. The scale upon which it will be needed in the longer term is not yet clear but the scope for liver donation by kidney donors in particular is being considered by a group of transplant surgeons. I hope that as this still experimental operation is performed, the new publicity campaign will mean that more donor livers will be available to sustain such expansion of the service as is feasible within the present state of medical and surgical techniques.
We are talking about all useable organs, not just kidneys, which is why the Government set such store by an approach to organ transplantation that stresses multi-organ donation, and not the willingness to carry a card that allow only kidneys to be removed. It is because of that that in 1980 my Department replaced the kidney donor card with a multi-organ donor card on which donors show their willingness to donate any organs, although they may choose to delete any of the organs listed; for example, to opt out of giving their heart.
The campaign that will be launched later this month will concentrate upon the donation of kidneys because that is where the need is greatest and most acute, and where most good can be done most rapidly, provided that the organs are available. The need for all organs will be made clear, and we hope that the vast majority of people will sign the card. I-see, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you have a card in your hand, and I applaud that. I hear from behind me the cry, "Where is the Minister's card?" I referred earlier to Barclaycard. Here is my National Trust card, here is my national insurance number card — hon. Members may not have seen one—and here is my donor card.
In his excellent article in The Guardian on 8 February, to which I referred earlier, Dr. Michael O'Donnell said that he had often embarrassed audiences of doctors by asking them—rather like asking whether they had given


up smoking—to produce their kidney and multi-organ donor cards. On several occasions he had a rather poor response. The campaign that will be launched later this month will concentrate on the donation of kidneys, where the need is most acute.
My last substantial point of principle concerns the need to convince the general public of the points that are commonly understood across the Chamber this afternoon.

Mr. Dalyell: Before the hon. Gentleman comes to his final point, will he explain, with the candour and seriousness with which he has been rightly answering the debate from the Dispatch box, why the central thrust of the argument of the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison) and myself — and doubtless the hon. Members for Harborough (Mr. Farr) and for Exeter (Mr. Hannam)— is unacceptable to the Department and his advisers? Why are they jibbing? Why are they reluctant to go a bit further and adopt the contracting-out scheme? Is it because of political opinion? Is it because of philosophical views about the freedom of individuals? What is now the objection in the Department and among his ministerial colleagues to going for the contracting-out option?

Mr. Patten: I shall be dealing with exactly that point at some length, although in doing so I shall be talking about ministerial opinions and not about the opinions of recently retired chief medical officers such as Sir Henry Yellowlees, or those of an older and riper vintage such as Sir George Godber, to whom reference was made earlier.
It is critically important to understand what public perception seems to be—according to a range of opinion polls — before I can examine fully the points about opting out. Everything that I say about public perception can be seen as a backdrop to what I am about to say concerning opting out.
A public opinion survey was undertaken by the British Kidney Patients Association. I express my appreciation of the work of that association and of the National Federation of Kidney Patients Associations in seeking to improve treatment facilities for kidney patients and to support them and their families. Those surveys were, of course, done by opinion pollsters who were paid to do the job. They may not have had great sensitivity in posing the question but they produced some interesting answers.
The most recent survey, taken only a few months ago, showed that 66 per cent. of the people questioned would be willing to donate their kidneys after death, and that only 20 per cent. would have any objection to doing so. So far so good, but—it is a very big but—the survey also showed that only 20 per cent. of those willing to donate their kidneys carry a donor card, and that as many as 42 per cent. of those willing to donate their organs, but not carrying a card, do not carry one because they cannot be bothered or because they have not thought about it. That is the attitude that we need to change.
The Human Tissue Act 1961, to which reference has already been made, allows the removal of organs after death if either the deceased person has indicated his consent in writing prior to his death or if, after such reasonable inquiry as may be practical, there is no evidence that the deceased person's relatives have any objection. A signed donor card meets the first of those requirements, but most doctors feel—here we see the

split in opinion between doctors and surgeons — that there is an additional ethical obligation to consult bereaved relatives before organs are removed, even when there is a signed card.
I am not saying that doctors are right in feeling that there is an important ethical consideration; they may well be wrong. I am simply reporting the feelings of a considerable number of doctors, whether they are right or wrong. For that reason alone, it is most important that people who are willing to donate their organs should let their relatives know, and the importance of that step will be stressed in the new campaign. It is critically important that people carrying a card for the first time should let their relatives know and make the signing of the card, if possible, a family event, so that everyone has taken collective responsibility within a family unit. All the members of the family would then fully appreciate and understand the gravity of the act.

Mr. Dalyell: That is right.

Mr. Patten: If we can persuade people to do that, it will be a major leap forward in the course of this year's campaign.
My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest stressed the importance of making it possible for greater publicity to be given in a range of ways. I welcome his idea—I was not aware of it before—about having an exhibition in the Upper Waiting Hall. We shall certainly consider that suggestion.

Sir John Biggs-Davison: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and for the courtesy with which he has approached the motion. Since he seems to have some doubt about contracting out, since there is a split in the medical profession, and since difficult ethical questions are involved, will he note that my motion does not call for contracting out but for an inquiry into its desirability? I hope that my hon. Friend will not close his mind to that possibility.

Mr. Patten: My mind is not closed. Perhaps I was at fault in not making that clearer at the beginning of my remarks. My hon. Friend's motion, I agree, includes a reference to opting out. In some European countries the law is different from our law under the Human Tissue Act. In those countries the removal of organs is permitted unless it can be established that the deceased has specifically objected. That is the exact reverse of the position in Britain.
At present, the Government do not support the amendment of the Human Tissue Act in such a way. That does not mean that we have closed our minds to the possibility of doing so in the future should our publicity campaign, to be launched towards the end of this month, prove to be of not much effect. Our whole strategy thus far has been predicated on the present system and is set within the present law. That is why it has been cast in the way it has.
The Government take their present view for three reasons, and those reasons must be set against the support of the public and of the medical profession, both of which are of supreme importance.
The first reason is that doctors already prefer to consult relatives before removing organs, even where they are not legally obliged to do so because the deceased person


carries a signed donor card. There is no reason at present to believe that that practice by doctors would be changed overnight by switching to an opting-out system.
Secondly, there is evidence to suggest that people are quite strongly opposed to the idea of an opting-out system, whether rightly or wrongly I am not saying; I am not giving an opinion. Our most recent public opinion polls still show a continuing opposition to opting out. That may mean that we have failed in the task of education. I am just setting out the facts as we see them. The success of the transplant programme depends heavily on public good will. I do not wish to endanger that or damage it by changing the existing arrangements.
The third of the reasons why the Government still have doubts—although we have not closed our mind—about the opting-out scheme is the practical one of experience. We feel that it is doubtful whether such a change would in practice result in an increased number of organs being made available. We have only to look across the Channel to France to see this, although international comparison of statistics is dodgy, particularly where the French are concerned. The French have had an opting-out system since 1976. There, unfortunately, kidney transplants are at a much lower level, and remain at a lower level, than here, at 15·6 per million of population compared to 19·6 in the United Kingdom. We hope that our climb upwards will continue after the publicity campaign to be launched at the end of the month.
If the campaign—which is framed within the context of the present law and the multi-organ donor card with which people have become familiar since the relaunch in 1980—is a failure, in 12 months' time we shall have to re-examine positively the possiblities of the opting-out scheme. I am happy to give that undertaking.

Mr. Dalyell: Can the Minister confirm that the Government's worries have nothing to do with recent coroners' decisions? In the 1970s, one of the strongest supporters of the scheme was Dr. Gavin Thurston, who was at that time a west London coroner.
It is all very well to talk about public opinion poll,, but do they not depend on the question asked? For example, if people were asked, "Do you think that it is right that an increasing number of kidneys, livers and other organs should go up in the smoke of a crematorium so that people who would otherwise be saved cannot be?" would that not lead to a different result than the kind of question that has been asked in the Marplan survey? Do not the results of polls also depend on the circumstances in which the question was asked?

Mr. Patten: Yes, the way in which questions are put and the sensitivity with which this is done is of particular importance in getting the most objectively based answers. All of us, in our use of public opinion polls, have to be cautious that we are getting an objective opinion and are not trying to get a certain answer. The answer to the first question, about whether or not coroners' opinions have had a great effect on the attitude of Government, is, most firmly, no.

Mr. John Farr: To what extent has medical knowledge improved so that it is possible to bank supplies of organs of the type about which we are talking? Is it still necessary to get them from recently dead bodies?

Mr. Patten: Mr. Speaker Thomas once told me, when he was here, although I shall not try to imitate his accent—

Mr. Meadowcroft: Go on.

Mr. Patten: No, despite the invitation of the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Meadowcroft), I shall not do so. Mr. Speaker Thomas said, "If you do not know the answer to a question when you stand at the Dispatch Box, say so and undertake to write." I am afraid that I do not know the answer to that question about the banking possibilities of various organs and I undertake to write to my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr), although I suspect that there are not many possibilities at the moment.
An important issue is that of attitudes within the medical profession. It has been suggested that one of the barriers to increasing the availability of donor organs is that doctors who attend the death of a patient who might be a suitable donor simply allow the opportunity to pass. I was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest about the new work in the NHS to make sure that the opportunities are not lost to interested doctors and surgeons. Valuable work to encourage doctors to consider the possibility of organ donation has already been done by transplant co-ordinators who have been appointed in a number of transplant centres. The Department is now funding this new departure. A number of pilot part-time consultant transplant adviser posts have been created to ensure positive educative encouragement. This may be of use in helping doctors to change their attitudes. Over the course of the next year we shall see whether this scheme will have the hoped for level of beneficial results.
I am certain that the most important factor in changing medical opinion will be public opinion. The greatest force acting on medical opinion will not be exhortation from the DHSS, which does not have beneficial effects, but rather public opinion bearing down on the medical profession. If doctors feel confident that most people support the principle of organ donation, they will be ready, off their own bat, to initiate donations whenever a suitable opportunity occurs. All the organ transplant co-ordinators that we could fund would not do that. Public opinion must have the major effect on changing medical opinion. I sympathise with the difficult task that doctors face. It must be hard enough, as some of us know from our experience, to bring news to a bereaved relative, and it must be even more difficult to broach the problem of organ transplantation in the same sentence.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest for his contribution to the debate and for framing a motion, the tenor of which is acceptable on both sides of the House and which the Government can largely accept, with the one inhibition about the opting-out scheme. The importance of organ donation is generally agreed. I am certain that the support of the House will contribute greatly to the success of the forthcoming campaign. Publicity is critically important, but it is not just publicity to persuade people to carry cards. Publicity to influence the perceptions of people who may become bereaved relatives and of doctors is equally and critically important. It is vital that the message is got across to the three, those who choose to carry the cards, those who might be bereaved and the medical profession, all of whom have a critical role to play.

Mr. Michael Meadowcroft: I welcome the motion in the name of the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison) and his choice of topic, not least because this is, as he rightly said, a sensitive topic and one that can be repugnant. Therefore, to phrase it and introduce it as he did is to be applauded.
This is not an easy issue and some of the knock-on effects of the decisions that can be taken may be serious. There is inevitably a difficult balance between the individual and heart-rending cases that are often publicised, such as the recent liver transplant case, and the broader effect of such cases on so many people. I sometimes wonder whether the media do transplantation a disservice by emphasising the one case when it is impossible to publicise the many cases that are therefore not helped. The assessment of competing needs when resources are limited must be an exceptionally delicate task for the medical profession. The hidden cases, by definition, are not known to us or to many of those who have to make the decisions.
The debate today has an added dimension, because we are responsible for the impression of Britain that we give those in other countries who are less fortunate than ourselves. It would not do our reputation much good if we simply developed more high-technology answers to illness and thereby widened the gap between ourselves and other countries.
I recollect a moving experience some time ago when I chaired a meeting in Leeds addressed by Amilcar Cabral, who was the leader of his people fighting against Portuguese colonialism in West Africa. Thousands of people there heard him say that many people write off liberation movements in Africa because they are merely youth movements. He said that it was difficult for them to be anything but young people's movements when the life expectancy in his country was only 35 years. If we merely develop the brilliant techniques and have no regard to the needs of those in other parts of the world, we shall do a disservice not only to those people but to our own constituents.
We have to consider not only whether we improve the quality of life for some, but whether we consider aspects of health care that improve the quality of life for many more. The changes that have brought about the greatest improvements in the quality of life have not always been technological or medical; many improvements in public health have led to the curing of diseases that killed people early in life.
Heart transplants raise particularly difficult issues. The evaluation to which the Minister referred is crucial and the results must be published as soon as possible. I regret the fact that neither the Minister's comments nor the recent statement by the Minister for Health included any reference to the effect of heart transplants on other medical work. The Minister for Health's statement spoke only about the value of heart transplants to the patients involved, in terms of whether they were living longer and enjoying a better quality of life. It is important to take into account the criticisms that have been made about the effect of heart transplants on other heart surgery and medical work in or around heart transplant wards. It is sometimes suggested that the emphasis on the glamorous heart transplant operations has a deleterious effect on other work.

Mr. John Patten: The statement of my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health referred to interim funding based on an interim evaluation of the efficacy of the heart transplant programmes at Papworth and Harefield. The final evaluation of the full report, which is expected towards the end of the year, will encompass all the points to which the hon. Gentleman has rightly referred.

Mr. Meadowcroft: I am grateful to the Minister. It is obviously crucial to allay the fears of those carrying out other work.
If the evaluation were not taking place, there would have to be a question mark over the continued devotion of resources to heart transplant work, as opposed to renal transplants and dialysis, for which, at present, the prognosis is better.
A hospital social worker told me, during a conversation about the availability of organs, that she carried a card saying that she was happy for any part of her body to be used after her death except her heart. She excluded use of her heart not for the touching reason mentioned by the lady referred to by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), but because she believed that the justification for heart transplants was not sufficiently strong.
The need for a medical audit as well as a financial audit is crucial, but financial considerations are inevitably significant. The figures on renal dialysis and transplants make interesting reading. The 1981 figures from King's college hospital show that the cost for one year's treatment on hospital dialysis was £9,800, compared with £6,450 for home dialysis and £4,700 for transplants with a one-year follow-up with functioning kidney. I was surprised to see that the balance was so much in favour of transplants.
It is clearly crucial to look at the costs of dialysis in capital as well as revenue terms. It is often not realised by those who rightly campaign for more dialysis to be made available that, although a machine costs only £6,000 to buy, the operating costs are between £8,000 and £12,000 a year. It is inevitable that financial considerations will largely determine what work we can carry out.
The Minister referred to the figures that showed an encouraging increase in the number of transplants, but there are still few centres in this country where such work is carried out. A leading article in the British Medical Journal on 22 October last year, signed by Mr. A. J. Wing, consultant physician at St. Thomas's hospital, said:
Limited facilities for treatment have made it necessary for British physicians to practise selection to a degree which seems strange, even barbaric, to our colleagues in other civilised countries. We have only 1·1 dialysis and transplant centres per million of the population, in contrast to comparable figures of 5·9 in Italy, 4·4 in the Federal Republic of Germany, 4·3 in Spain and 3·7 in France. Even Eastern European countries have more centres—3·0 in Yugoslavia and 2·8 in GDR.
Clearly, we need to provide more centres.
Another aspect that needs to be dealt with is the suggestion, which was made as a prediction before the seat belt law was introduced and has been repeated since then, that the advent of the compulsory wearing of seat belts would reduce the number of kidneys available for donation. A consultant has told me that has not proved to be the case, because the majority of kidneys become available as a result of motor cycle accidents, rather than accidents involving front-seat passengers in cars.

Mr. John Patten: I apologise for intervening in the hon. Gentleman's speech for a second time, and I am glad


that he has allowed me to do so, because it gives me the opportunity to say that the suggestion that the introduction of compulsory wearing of seat belts had led to a drying up in the supply of kidneys suitable for transplant is completely wrong. It is a myth which needs to be knocked on the head very quickly. There is no such evidence.

Mr. Meadowcroft: That is precisely the point which I was seeking to make, and I am glad that the Minister has emphasised it.
The hon. Member for Linlithgow rightly said that we could not avoid facing up to the difficult question of freedom. If opting in has not produced a sufficient response and if the Minister's campaign does not succeed in improving the position, opting out will become much more attractive. However, although it may be acceptable and sustainable for adults, there is a separate question regarding consent for children. It is a more difficult problem and will cause particular difficulties in specific cases. As the Minister said, the livers of young people are particularly important for transplant work.
Whether we have opting in or opting out, bereaved relatives will have to be approached. Even with an opting-out system, we cannot remove from the medical personnel involved the responsibility for talking to the next of kin in traumatic circumstances. One may well have to tackle this in a different way, but I suspect that opting out helps rather than hinders the approach to a case.
There has been another change in attitude recently. The attitude demonstrated by somewhat fraught discussions on television about the nature of death, the problem of brain stem death and how one determines and defines health, appears largely to have gone from the public mind. Little concern is expressed now about the possibility of people not being dead at the time at which organs are required. If that is true, the case of the hon. Member for Epping Forest in favour of contracting out is that much more powerful. I suspect that there is more confidence, therefore, in the determination to move towards a greater acceptance for opting out.
Psychological aspects and emotional feelings are of great importance. Like the Minister, I was much moved by the suggestion by Sir Cyril Clarke of a memorial to those people who have accepted that the organs of their loved ones be used in this way. It would have been helpful if the Minister had continued the quotation from the article in The Guardian. The article, I think significantly, quoted the parents of the child from whom the liver was taken in the case that came before the television cameras:
John and Margaret Evans are attracted by Sir Cyril's idea of some form of permanent memorial that would acknowledge the contribution a death had made to another's life.
If the people in that situation were prepared to go public and to be quoted, there is clearly much to be done.
Other cases will need to be considered by the medical profession involving other organs for transplant. One such case is the transplant of the pancreas to help diabetics. It may not be possible to devise rules and regulations to cover the various kinds of transplant. However, I hope that will not inhibit us from tackling the question now under consideration, and that there will be no question of trying to delay the determination of ways to deal with various cases because new and as yet unknown problems lie ahead.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Epping Forest again on raising the subject. I wish him the success that the

motion deserves, because of the way in which it is phrased, and I encourage him in his efforts to enlist the assistance of the Under-Secretary.

Mr. Jeremy Hanley: First, I must declare an interest. I am the recipient of a transplanted organ. I received a cornea. Had I not received the cornea, I should have lost my right eye. My feelings of relief are outweighed only by my gratitude to the donor and to the next of kin. I shall never forget that altruistic act of the donor and of his or her family—for I know not which it was. Every day of my life I remember the donor. Every time I look out of my eyes, I think of the donor, because the pain has gone, and my sight has come back. I hope that I shall not be a recipient again, but that in my turn I shall be a donor.
I well remember the autumn of 1979 when I had my operation. As I passed out under the anaesthetic, I was listening to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) who was speaking, I believe, on London local radio. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I need to be anaesthetised to pass out when he is speaking! I was grateful for the stand that the hon. Gentleman took in 1978–79. That gratitude is matched only by my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Sir John Biggs-Davison) for having moved the motion.
I believe that the motion is temperate and sensible and that its aims are greatly to be desired. Receiving an organ is touch and go. I was put out under anaesthetic and came round some hours later. I had not had the operation, because the cornea had been rejected—as I understand it, for administrative, and not medical reasons. Much delay, particularly in corneal transplantation, is caused by administrative problems. I am grateful for the Government's attitude in trying to speed up the process.
A further delay is caused by next of kin. I carry a donor card because I want my organs, if they are suitable, to be used after my death. It is only by contracting out that people who do not want their organs used for transplantation can guarantee that they shall not be so used. By carrying a card, I cannot guarantee that my wishes will be carried out. The motion therefore strikes the right balance. I join other hon. Members in calling on the Government to instigate some form of inquiry into whether people's minds have changed in this difficult area.
I end my brief speech by thanking the donor again. 'The donor never knew what he did after his death, and I never knew who he was. Most people who, as an altruistic act, fill out a card hope they will never be giving benefit to others. Let us face it, we do not wish to donate our organs before we have lived a long and healthy life. I know only that some such person has given me my sight. In thousands of cases, people lead a better and healthier life, and something positive comes out of something so distressful. On behalf of all recipients, I thank my hon. Friend for having moved the motion.

Mr. Tony Banks: I have great pleasure in following the speech of the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) who has demonstrated eloquently how vital it is to facilitate the transplanting of organs by carrying a card whereby, in the event of some sad or even normal event, organs that are worthy can be passed on. I would take much pleasure in knowing that


there are still bits of me circulating when I have gone to the upper chamber in the sky. Indeed, if bits of me were left for others to use, some unkind people might suggest that was the only decent thing I left to the world.
I wish to make a wider point on the question of organ transplants. This is not a subject to which I have given much attention in parliamentary terms. My intervention will therefore be relatively brief. As the Minister will doubtless recall, I have tabled a number of questions on the subject. I have been moved by recent stories in the newspapers about the purchase of organs from abroad and their importation into this country. Given that the debate is concerned with demand outstripping supply, it is essential to raise some of these points, because there are dangers inherent in going somewhat wider in the search to match supply to demand.
I read a story in The Observer in the middle of last year which suggested that kidneys were being purchased in the United States for import into this country. I believe that the then going price for a kidney was $4,600. The Observer story suggested that kidneys were available because patients in the United States could not afford transplants under that country's medical schemes. It struck me as hideous that, because this country has a more enlightened approach to medicine, it might purchase kidneys from a country where patients are waiting for those kidneys, but cannot afford them.
In a written question on 16 January I asked the Minister how many kidneys had been purchased by the National Health Service from the United States, how much on average each kidney cost and what information he had about the number of patients waiting for kidney transplants in the United States. In his reply on 20 January the Minister said that he was not aware that kidneys had been imported from the United States for transplantation into National Health Service patients. I was glad to read that he added:
It would be contrary to Government policy to purchase kidneys or other organs on commercial terms but payment might be made to cover transport costs and costs incurred at the donor hospital."—[Official Report, 20 January 1984; Vol. 52, c. 336.]
In reply to my question asking how many patients in the United States were awaiting kidney transplants, he said that the corresponding figure was not readily available.
When I contacted the United Kingdom kidney centre, I was told that there were between 15,000 and 20,000 patients in the United States awaiting kidney transplants. That information was available, but unfortunately it did not appear to be available to the Minister.
However, I am still not satisfied with the hon. Gentleman's reply. I am not suggesting that the Minister is trying to hide the facts, but I do not believe that sufficient care is being taken and that sufficient safeguards are built into the system to assure that there is no abuse.
On 27 January, I asked the Minister what information he had about the importation of organs for use in the private medical service and what were the countries of origin. I began to get more information. The hon. Gentleman replied:
Information about arrangements made privately to import organs is not usually available to the Department."—[Official Report, 2 February 1984; Vol. 53, c. 350.]

But he added to his previous answer by saying that he had since been informed that three kidneys had been imported from the United States for use in the private sector and had been used subsequently in the National Health Service.
I am afraid that that again is incomplete information. Since then I have received a letter from the British Kidney Patients Association saying that not three but nine kidneys were imported from the United States in 1983. My fears increase, given what appear to be some gaps in the information available to the Minister's Department.
I asked about countries of origin. That is very important, as I shall explain. The Minister quite rightly said that it was not a matter for him because it was dealt with by another Department. I ended up directing a question to the Department of Trade and Industry asking whether it kept records of imported organs. Unfortunately, the answer was not particularly helpful. The Minister responsible said that human organs for therapeutic purposes were not separately identified in Overseas Trade Statistics of the United Kingdom.
I find that worrying. It was my hope that I could be told instantly exactly how many organs came into the country, which were the countries of origin and what was their destination — the National Health Service or private health service. I put those questions to the Minister not to be annoying or tedious, but because of my concern that there appeared to be insufficient controls.

Mr. John Patten: I wanted to intervene earlier, but I sensed that the hon. Gentleman was about to take us through a sequence of events. I have to admit that they are events from which I have learnt one or two facts of which I was not aware previously. I shall be conducting an in-depth examination when I get back to the Elephant and Castle among the civil servants responsible to discover why I was not aware of one or two of those facts. But let me make it unequivocally clear to the House that the National Health Service has not purchased and will not purchase from any source—whether abroad or at home —any organs for transplantation, although the National Health Service has been and will be willing to pay transport and handling costs for organs which are switched from one country to another to meet the tight matching of organs when we do not have adequate organs at home. That has been common practice among French, German and other clinicians in recent years.

Mr. Banks: I am grateful for that intervention and glad that I have been able to assist in a small way in rounding up the information that the Minister will be receiving in future. Although I accept unreservedly the hon. Gentleman's assurances, there are still moral issues involved. If we think about the United States, it could be that the safeguards mentioned by the Minister were applied, but that those organs were still diverted from patients in the United States who, because of their medical system, could not afford to have those organs put into their own bodies.
I accept that there will not be a spot market for organs in Amsterdam and that we shall not start reading about them in the Financial Times. But there is still a moral issue. We must be sure when we accept organs from the United States that they are genuinely surplus. to requirements or cannot be matched into any patients in the United States. Given the figures that I have received, it is


clear that that is not what happens, because between 15,000 and 20,000 patients are waiting for such transplants in the United States.
I accept what the Minister said, but he missed out one important factor, and it was my hope that he would go on to deal with it. He gave us a categorical assurance about the National Health Service. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House want the same categorical assurance about the private medical service. It looks as though that is where the growth in transplants will come if greater accessibility to organs is allowed.
I come finally to the most worrying story of all that I read in the newspapers about organ transplants. It is the allegation — that is all that it is; I have no way of proving it, and I hope that the Minister will use his good offices to discover the facts—that American doctors were purchasing organs from live persons—not cadavers —in Third-world countries. I find that horrific. It is a form of cannibalism. It is horrifying that someone from the money-rich United States could go to a Bangladeshi or Indian peasant and offer money to purchase one kidney or some other internal organ. It would be exceedingly tempting. That organ would be taken back to the United States for use in the private health service there. I find that horrific. What is even more worrying is that what happens in the United States often happens here a little time afterwards.
I want a further categorical assurance from the Minister that in no circumstances will the Government allow the purchase of organs from Third-world countries for use in the private medical service here. We must be firm. The Minister's undertaking must be precise. We must not confine our concern just to the National Health Service. It must be extended to all medical services. I hope that that assurance will be given. If the story that I read is true, it is the worst form of cannibalism that I can think of, and we must stamp it out.

Sir John Biggs-Davison: What organs does the hon. Gentleman think would be usable after being transported from Bangladesh to the United States? I share his horror at such a story—if it is true—but it seems unlikely to be true because of the uselessness of such organs.

Mr. Banks: I readily admit that I am no expert on the subject. But since organs are being moved from the United States, I assume that it is not impossible, with the aid of modern technology, to move them from Bangladesh, India, or any other countries.
What worried me more than anything else was -that no Minister would accept responsibility for or admit knowledge of organs coming into this country for use in the private medical service. I was in half a mind to test the matter myself, by getting a bunch of chicken livers, taking them to France, and sending them back here. If no one in the Customs pays any great attention to organs coming into the country, there is clearly a loophole that responsible Ministers should plug.

Mr. John Patten: Perhaps before the hon. Gentleman resumes his seat he will allow me to point out that one important check on the growth of what would be a perfectly horrifying trade—were it to spring up, and there is no evidence that it has sprung up in the way suggested in The Observer—is that we are safeguarded by medical ethics. Does he realise that the medical profession

in this country simply would not tolerate the trade in organs that the hon. Gentleman suggests? We can rely on the medical profession.

Mr. Banks: I should he ready to accept what the Minister says as a safeguard, but, frankly, where there is demand, there will be supply. After all, that is what we are told daily in other spheres by the Conservative party. I am afraid that the growth will take place in private medicine. I do not seek to be alarmist. I merely seek from the Minister a shred of concern — which he has undoubtedly expressed—and a willingness to ensure not that the practice does not become widespread, but that it does not even start. That is what I seek.

Sir Philip Goodhart: The hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) painted a rather improbable international scene of transplants. I shall follow him overseas just long enough to point out that Mr. Andropov died of renal failure. Some doctors in this country have asked why he did not have a transplant. Perhaps he did have a kidney transplant and it did not succeed. The Soviet Union likes to keep these matters secret. We do not know much about the medical condition of their leaders and ex-leaders, and we shall probably never know whether Mr. Andropov had a transplant that failed. I do not know how many kidney transplants take place in the Soviet Union. The medical statistics that we have about that country are sketchy, and few and far between.
We know that the demand for transplants in this country has been growing and shows every sign of continuing to grow. My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison), who opened the debate in a constructive manner, reminded us that the number of kidney transplants in this country reached 1,100 last year, and that the number of transplants that take place here is greater than in any other European country.
No doubt the development of new drugs and new administrative methods, and perhaps the adoption and passage of new laws of the type advocated by my hon. Friend and by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), will increase the number of successful transplant operations of kidneys that come from corpses. At present, there is no doubt that a kidney donated by a live relative offers the best chance of success. The latest figures that I have seen show that the percentage of successful renal transplants after one year is 80 per cent. when the kidney has come from a brother or sister, compared with a success rate of 55 per cent. for the transplant of a kidney from someone who has just died.
I am well aware of the strains and stresses that a transplant can impose on a family. A great friend of mine recently volunteered to donate one of her kidneys to her youngest sister, and tests are now being carried out to see whether her kidney will be compatible. Of course, her sister is delighted at the prospect that her life will be prolonged, but other close relatives fear that my friend's health will suffer. She herself has the greatest confidence in the advice that she receives from the doctors and specialists who are testing her, but her immediate family are well aware that all those involved in the testing operation are anxious for the transplant to go ahead. There is a natural fear among some of her relatives that the after-. effects of donating a kidney are being underplayed.
I am sure that all the doctors involved present the facts as fairly as they can, but the potential donor needs more information from other donors about their experiences Sometimes, potential donors can be put in touch with someone who has already given a kidney. However, there seems to be a shortage of reliable, non-professional published material about the effects of donating a kidney. What is lacking at present is a pamphlet setting out the experiences of donors. Such a pamphlet could be read by potential donors before they are emotionally committed, and it could deal with the speed of recovery of the donor and possible side effects.
I note that in May 1982, a questionnaire was sent out by the National Federation of Kidney Patients Associations to a substantial number of its members. It reported that almost all of the nearly 300 people who replied said that they would have liked more information about the operation, and only 40 of the people who replied had been given any written information. The national federation said:
Patients need information. They do not get enough. Written information is highly desirable to back up what people are told.
The people to whom the questionnaire was sent were almost all patients who had received kidneys, rather than those who had given kidneys, but it is more important for donors to have information than for patients who receive kidneys to have information.

Mr. John Patten: I hope that my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that, as part of our publicity campaign at the end of this month, we have produced just such a booklet, giving the case histories of a number of people who have donated their kidneys, and examining all the problems that are associated with that donation.

Sir Philip Goodhart: I am delighted that my hon. Friend should have answered my request before I have even made it. I am sure that the booklet will be of great benefit and interest to my friend, and to the many hundreds of potential donors who are contemplating this most courageous act.

Mr. Laurie Pavitt: I apologise through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison) for the fact that I have been unable to hear the whole of the debate. However, I have been deeply involved in this subject for a long time. I have had the privilege of sponsoring every private Member's Bill that my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) has introduced on it. The point made by the hon. Member for Beckenham (Sir P. Goodhart) about information is extremely important, and the Minister immediately acknowledged that.
We are discussing the transplanting of kidneys, corneas, livers and hearts, and my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow made a moving point about the need to understand the reaction to heart transplants, in particular. However, I shall concentrate my remarks on kidney transplants. A kidney transplant invariably follows a period of dialysis. The Minister made it clear that the debate centred on organ transplants, but dialysis cannot be divorced from that. It is part of the transplant process.
The special relationship between a renal unit and a patient undergoing dialysis should be fully understood by

anyone interested in the subject. Renal nurses are perhaps the most dedicated of nurses, although I pay tribute to all sections of the nursing profession. Renal nurses have to use their technical skill in inserting the shunt and so on, and in preparing the patient for what they hope is a matching kidney. They also have to inspire confidence and build up a personal relationship with the patient.
Every time dialysis takes place, the renal nurse is literally holding the patient's hand. The patient may be scared, and the nurse uses all her skill and provides all the information that she can— a point made by the hon. Member for Beckenham — to give the patient confidence. The staff are dedicated, and need to be, as inevitably some cases are lost and some are won. A nurse may spend months looking after a patient who has his blood changed regularly three times a week. She may nurse him through the trauma of preparing for the transplant only to find that the kidney does not match and that the patient may die. Therefore, such nurses should be singled out for commendation, because they carry a special responsibility.
The Minister has made it clear that the important factor in carrying out transplants is not money but the number of organs that we can obtain. However, one of the difficulties is that the DHSS needs money to clear a bottleneck. Renal technicians, nurses and experts are in short supply. There is a bottleneck in their careers. The nurse's skill is highly specialised. She can find herself on duty on a Friday when a transplant is flown in from Rome, Paris or Scandinavia. As it is impossible to find staff for the rest of the weekend, she might have to do a 48-hour stint, nursing the patient. Therefore, such work is highly demanding. I hope that the Minister will consider the whole career structure which applies once a nurse has specialised and has become a theatre nurse or renal expert. She then tends to drop off the promotion ladder. A nurse does not want to be an administrator, and a nurse who has specialised in renal dialysis and transplants is proud of her skill. Therefore, it should be possible for the Department to find a way of ensuring that such people are not left at grade six or seven in the hierarchy, but receive a special reward for their special skills.
When Lord Ennals was Secretary of State and the Labour Government rightly gave a lot of money for more kidney machines, I argued that it was all very well having the hardware, but that it was no good without the people to operate it. We need both the staff and the machinery if we are to have a successful transplant system. There must be, all the way along, that personnel back-up. Where there is a shortage of personnel, incentives must be provided to end it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) told a horrifying story. I share the general concern, but believe that the case was an extreme one. However, we legislate not for the 99 per cent. who are good, but for the 1 per cent. who are bad. I shall cite an example where a slip-up could happen. There is often a medical tie-up with the technical assistance programmes in the Third world, where there is also a lot of deafness. Research carried out at the John Hopkins university in Baltimore made use of a fine overseas aid arrangement whereby professors were provided to train consultants in otology and audiology—or otorhinolaryngology, to give it its full name — and in exchange, the university received thousands of temporal bones for its research into the cochlea and the way in which deafness occurs.
Some of the finest research into deafness is carried out at that university. Therefore, although I think that such cases are unlikely, I also believe that unscrupulous people could make use of such arrangements if there was money in it. However, I noticed that the Minister shared our concern and will ensure that safeguards are adequate.
We are not sufficiently proud of the initiatives and breakthroughs achieved by the NHS. We are inclined to decry the NHS and never to give it credit. However, the NHS has been a world leader in renal transplants and dialysis for a long time. Last year, I had the privilege to attend the European conference for renal nurses and doctors at the Barbican, which was opened by the Secretary of State. People came from all over the world. I pay tribute to the pioneering way in which Britain has led the world in matching tissues, in the research carried out at the London hospital, which was then transferred to the organ-matching unit at Bristol.
Bristol has pioneered a computerised system that operates worldwide. On receipt of a telephone call or telex, an organ can be matched up, via the computer, with a patient. The organ can be flown into Heathrow, and the police will take it to the necessary hospital, whether it is Guy's, Bart's, Manchester, or wherever the transplant takes place. The point is that the NHS took the initiative and has led the world. Therefore, people who are inclined, from time to time, to think about what is wrong with the NHS and to discover all its faults and failings, should also pay tribute to what has been done.
Tribute should be paid to the way in which information has been given on home dialysis. The first hospital to do so was, I believe, the Royal Free in London, but it is now widespread. We have led the world in this regard, and I pay tribute to the arrangements that the Department has made over the years to enable home dialysis to take place until such time as a matching kidney arrives.
We should be proud of the way in which we have pioneered home dialysis. In addition, we should praise the local authorities and the organisational help given by Government Departments, not only in respect of kidney machines but also plumbing. In particular, we should pay tribute to the relatives of the patients—the mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, who have co-operated to help them over the hump.

Mr. Dalyell: While paying tributes, should we not also pay tribute to the kidney associations throughout the country that have done a great deal to help fellow sufferers?

Mr. Pavitt: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. That is so.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison) on initiating this debate. Some Labour Members have been trying to debate this subject for a long time, and I am grateful to the House for its courtesy in allowing me to say a few words.

Mrs. Edwina Currie: This time last year, as well as having my finger in the housing benefits pie in the city of Birmingham, I was also chairman of the Central Birmingham health authority — the teaching authority for the west midlands.
The Queen Elizabeth hospital, part of that authority, is now one of the main centres for kidney and liver

transplantation. The Birmingham children's hospital, also part of that authority, has been recommended by the regional health authority for the transplantation of bone marrow in children. Therefore, I have some direct experience of the subject.
Like many hon. Members, I also have the fear in the back of my mind that at some time I might need such care, as my grandmother died of Bright's disease in the days before the second world war, when the sort of things about which we are now talking were thought of as magic and absolutely impossible. Bright's disease is, of course, renal failure.
It should be read into the record that the United Kingdom's experience of kidney transplants is the best in Europe. We are well ahead of all our European partners. Indeed, the figure of 1,160 kidneys transplanted in the United Kingdom last year is absolutely first class, and we should say so.
However, a slight problem arises when the pattern of kidney transplants is compared with the size of our population. Although certain smaller countries, particularly the Scandinavian countries, transplant fewer kidneys, they have done rather better than us when population is taken into account. In recent years it has been twice as easy to get a kidney transplant in Israel, and three times as easy in Norway, as it has been in this country.
The figures for the entire kidney programme show that there are some gaps in the United Kingdom. In most other European countries, the main programme is based on dialysis rather than on transplantation. I think that we have got it right and believe that the programme should be based on transplantation.
The figures for 31 December 1981—the latest that I have been able to obtain, although the Minister may have more up-to-date information—show that in Belgium the total number of patients dialysed and receiving transplants represented 183 patients per million of the population, in Germany it was 200, in France it was 206 and in Italy it was 190, whereas in the United Kingdom it was 93. In other words, a patient had twice the chance of receiving some kind of kidney treatment in those countries. Indeed, we were 17th in that table of European statistics.
Although our transplantation programme is active and successful, it seems that we are selective about who is accepted on some sort of programme. I urge the Minister to look at the programme as a whole. Those of us involved in taking decisions on how much money should go into the different parts of the programme have come rapidly to the conclusion that it must all fit together and that the various parts should not be regarded as competing for resources.
The United Kingdom's transplantation record is improving fast. The 1983 figure shows a 32 per cent. rise in the last two years. Ten years ago we transplanted 547 kidneys. In other words, the number has doubled in the last 10 years. I hope that it will not be another 10 years before it doubles again. About 2,500 people are now waiting for kidneys, but only about half can expect a transplantation with in a year according to an earlier comment by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell). In fact, patients with the commonest blood group—the "O" blood group —must wait the longest, perhaps because the surgeons and consultants dealing with a patient who is dying and who has a rare blood group are much more likely to ask for the kidney to be donated. I am not entirely sure about that, but the fact remains that the commoner one's blood group, the longer one will have to wait.
I should like to read into the record a letter that I received from a constituent in Chellaston, Derby, who said:
ten years ago last month I had a kidney transplant, after being kept alive on a kidney machine for 3½ years. I was the second patient to arrive, in 1970, on to the Derby City Hospital Renal Unit (now I'm the longest surviving …). That unit was only opened after a public subscription had raised half its cost … Patients do not always end up as lucky as me. I have (and am doing) returned to a useful place in society"—
he works at Rolls Royce—
and have repaid the expenditure … I have paid an enormous amount of tax in various ways. The Government has had its whack back from me.
He ends by inviting me to join him on the Derby marathon on 3 June, an invitation that sadly I intend to refuse.
Other constituents will continue to need dialysis. Therefore, it is important that the programme be seen in its entirety.
Many patients suffer temporary kidney failure as a result of an accident or post-operative problems. Many will not benefit from a kidney transplant, unless they are reasonably fit. Therefore, we must get patients reasonably fit. Sadly, many will suffer some form of rejection. They should at least have the opportunity of leading a useful life until they have a second chance or until, like a diabetic or asthmatic, they accept that they will always be dependent on medication.
In a written answer, my hon. Friend the Minister is of the firm opinion that our system, in which transplantation is the main thrust, is easily the most cost-effective. He suggested that taking into account
staffing and consumables; the value of machines, equipment and home conversions … and average costs incurred as a result of medical complications"— [Official Report, 25 November 1983; Vol. 49, c. 345.]
a successful transplant would cost between £5,600 and £6,450 in the first year, with an annual maintenance cost of less than £40 a week thereafter. The figures also showed that home dialysis would cost between £8,000 and £10,000 a year and that CAPD — continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis—would cost up to £11,000, although in my experience it is cheaper than that in practice and is likely to get cheaper as time goes by. Hospital haemodialysis can cost anything up to £15,000 a year. Therefore, we can transplant three kidney patients for the cost of keeping one on a kidney machine in hospital.
As my constituent has pointed out, the maintenance cost of keeping someone after transplant at home is probably a darn sight less, and he is paying for it in tax anyway.
Any reasonable economic view of the NHS should take account of that costs-benefits pattern. In recent years, all the priorities developed in the NHS—and I have agreed with them—have been for the benefit of the elderly, the mentally handicapped and the mentally ill. I have a feeling that the middle-aged man who was likely to get back to work and to repay the cost of his treatment has been somewhat neglected.
In mid-1982, I remember walking into the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham to find the whole place a buzz. I asked what was going on, and was told that the remarkable transplant surgeon, Paul McMasters, had decided to do a liver transplant. For the next fortnight, the entire hospital revolved around that patient. At that time

only seven centres in the world were carrying out liver transplants, although it is now 21 years since the first was carried out in Denver, Colorado.
The only centre in this country at the time was the Addenbrooke's hospital, in association with the Royal Free and King's in London. It required two teams of surgeons—one to sort out the donor and the other to sort out the recipient. Nurses worked all night. The patient needed 42 pints of whole blood. The laboratories had to be kept open 24 hours a day for several days because the blood chemistry had to be tested every 15 minutes. The intensive therapy unit was completely taken over because the patient required barrier nursing, which involved two teams of nurses.
The only howl of rage came from a distinguished heart surgeon whose bypass operations had to be cancelled—not because the theatre was booked, but because the ITU was booked solid for days. The heart surgeon felt that the bypass operations were also valuable. It was also the only occasion on which a surgeon has said to me that the operation was successful but, sadly, the patient died.
Liver transplants in this country have become increasingly successful. The Queen Elizabeth hospital has carried out nine in two years, and seven of the patients are still alive and leading a normal life. That is a success rate of 77 per cent. Recent experience in Colorado shows that 63 per cent. survive the first year and 42 per cent. for five years. That must be a good record. Addenbrooke's has carried out 150 liver transplants, with a 50 per cent. survival rate at the end of one year. So liver transplants appear to work.
I have always been hesitant about high technology—the high-flown magic that masquerades as medicine. But I have made careful inquiries about this subject, and been repeatedly told that liver transplantation for the right patient does work. It is especially satisfactory for children, particularly if there has been an umbilical infection.
I wish, however, to draw my hon. Friend the Minister's attention to the problem of costs. Pittsburgh estimates that the cost of a liver transplant is about $70,000. We do not yet know the cost in Britain. The cost of the blood required, the missed opportunities for bypass operations and so on would be difficult to compute. Two of the nine patients treated at the Queen Elizabeth came from overseas. The only charge that could be made either to them or to their Governments was the private patient cost of a bed. In a teaching hospital, that is about £100 a day. The remainder of the cost had to be borne not by the DHSS or the regional health authority, but by the local district health authority out of the unit budget that had been allocated to that hospital.
If something works, it is worth recognising that it works. I plead with my hon. Friend the Minister to take into account the requests that have been made to recognise liver transplantation as a regional specialty and that it should be properly funded, albeit on an experimental basis.

Mr. Dalyell: The hon. Lady mentioned certain figures. Does the Minister accept that renal dialysis costs £14,000 to £16,000 per annum? What is the Department's estimate of the cost of a transplant?

Mrs. Currie: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to continue with my speech, which is coming to an end.
I wish to make a few remarks about contracting in and contracting out. I was a member of the Birmingham area health authority that tried hard to set proper guidelines through the mid-1970s so that we could guarantee the relatives of patients that there would be no question of the patient not being dead. The matter is straightforward in setting out what the medics should do. However, in practice — as has been said several times this afternoon—most consultants consult patients' relatives. The time has come to test the water for contracting out. The Human Tissue Act 1961 is not working in the way that was intended, for a variety of reasons.
As part of the preparation for contracting out, we need an active publicity campaign, and so I warmly welcome the statement of my hon. Friend the Minister. Will my hon. Friend draw attention to the need for corneal transplants? In 1982, there were 500 kidney donors in Britain, but virtually none of them donated corneas. The educational aspect must be directed not just at the public generally but at those working in the hospitals who ask for a kidney but never think twice about asking for a cornea.

Mr. John Patten: Is my hon. Friend aware that in the forthcoming publicity campaign we intend to concentrate on the important point that she raised about the need for more corneal grafts? Is she further aware that the figures that she gave earlier about the relative costs of hospital haemodialysis, of CAPD and kidney transplants, with the associated maintenance costs for a patient having received a kidney transplant, are broadly correct?

Mrs. Currie: I am aware that they are correct. Indeed, I quoted my hon. Friend's written answer of 25 November 1983.

Mr. John Patten: That is why they are correct.

Mrs. Currie: If we are to go hell for leather for transplants—and that is the right direction with kidneys — several things will be needed. We will eventually need more money because some of the kidney transplant units are coming close to the maximum number. We could not double the number of kidney transplants being carried out at the Queen Elizabeth because it does not have the capacity. That must be recognised sooner or later. Calculations must be carefully worked out on which transplants will be cost-effective, on which patients they will prove most cost-effective and what else we could do with that money. A proper opportunity-cost calculation must he carried out. We need a publicity campaign, and that must be directed at the doctors as well as at the public. I also firmly believe that we need changes in the law.

Mr. Frank Dobson: I thank the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison) for raising this topic. The Opposition support his motion. I hope that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) will not be offended if I congratulate her on her speech—with 99 per cent. of which I agree.
As several hon. Members have waved their donor cards, I had better explain my position. Because I have had jaundice, the national blood transfusion service will not take my blood. I understand that no one would want one of my organs. While they may be in sound condition, they would always carry with them the possibility of giving someone hepatitis—which is not the object of organ transplants.
Organ transplants pose a difficult problem for almost everyone. Although some may think that it is a straightforward matter, most people have mixed and powerful emotions about the whole issue. Such emotions affect everyone involved. The relatives of a deceased person sometimes have generous feelings on the sudden death of that person. They might feel upset because, despite all the love and affection they they have given that person, he has died, so they want to do something positive. They may think that it would be worth helping someone else to live because the life that they held so precious was suddenly snuffed out and they could do nothing about that.
Most people also feel a great reverence for a dead body, and that is common to most societies. Doctors involved in organ transplants know that a sudden bereavement makes it difficult for relatives to cope not only with that bereavement but with a request for an organ for transplant. Doctors also feel strong emotions, and we should not discount them. A doctor may feel bitterly disappointed that, after trying to preserve the life of a patient, that patient has died, and he finds it difficult to ask the relatives for an organ.
There are very proper feelings of urgency among doctors who wish to carry out transplants and they are sometimes in conflict with the doctors who are trying, however desperately and in a sense hopelessly, to preserve a life. That, too, should not be discounted. There is also the urgent desire for a new organ on the part of the person needing it and that person's family — a feeling that I well understand. When I was a boy I watched my father die because his kidneys had stopped working. There was nothing else wrong with him. I should have done anything to get his kidneys working again or to find a substitute for them. That powerful feeling must characterise all those with relatives in whom an organ has failed and threatens to bring down the whole edifice.
Reference has been made to the ethical problems of defining death and who may certify death. I think that everyone welcomes the new code introduced in March last year as a step forward in controlling what was going on and, perhaps more important, stilling public concern about the problems of defining and certifying brain death. In considering the Government's proposals for more publicity, for more encouragement to people to become donors and the possibility of an opting-out system., we should bear in mind the fears that hang about in the backs of people's minds. One can think of extremely sick societies in which an abominable dictator facing renal failure might have a donor sought out and killed. Abominably rich criminals might do the same in some societies. I believe that fears of that kind may still lurk in the minds of some people here. We do not live in that kind of society. Last year's code of practice and the history of organ transplants in this country are an affirmation that we maintain human and humane values and reject the attitudes that I have described.
We should also not forget that there are practical problems in finding donors and matching tissues and that there are still severe practical problems in carrying out transplant operations. The effort and skill needed to carry out a successful transplant are still great and the difficulties should not be underestimated just because the success rate has been so high especially in kidney transplants.
As the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South pointed out, there is also the problem of resources. Organ transplants cannot be considered in isolation from the demands for


resources of the rest of the medical system. In some sectors, the transplant option cannot be separated from the various other possible treatments. Moreover, it is not just a matter of long-term resources or more money being made available. As the hon. Lady amply showed in relation to the Birmingham hospital, a major transplant operation can immediately tie up vast resources intended for other purposes. That poses severe problems for all those trying to manage and operate the NHS in such a way as to maximise the benefit to the maximum number of people.
I welcome the Government's proposals to step up publicity. To the extent that the Opposition parties can do anything to help, I am sure that we shall do all that we can.
So far as I know, the supply of corneas is not a major restraint on corneal graft operations although there is sometimes a shortage. The supply of hearts and livers is sometimes a restraining factor and sometimes not. The supply question is most controversial in relation to kidneys. The Under-Secretary of State said that the restraints on kidney transplants had nothing to do with money, but that view is not shared by all renal experts. Stewart Cameron, professor of renal medicine at Guy's hospital, writes as follows:
At the moment we treat about 1,500 new patients each year … However, out of a total of over 7,000 patients who die each year of renal failure it is quite certain that at least 3,500 and possibly more patients are eminently suitable for treatment. That means that 2,000 people are dying every year unnecessarily".
He goes on to state:
the real problem is facilities for people who either have failed transplants already or cannot have them, and who cannot use a medicine or some other form of dialysis treatment at home. The bulk of these patients are older, or in the young group with complications such as diabetes. For this group we give woefully poor treatment, which results in our total performance being abysmally poorer than every other Western developed nation. In fact, out of all the European countries (in which the number of people dying from kidney failure is roughly the same in proportion to population) we rank lower than every one except Portugal—behind countries as relatively poor as Greece and Spain. In fact, the Italians do very well, and it is interesting and ironic to note that in the island of Sicily alone, the poorest part of one of the poorer members of the EEC, there are more Dialysis Units … and more dialysis places … than there are in the whole of England!
I do not wish to labour that point, but it is worth noting that we cannot consider kidney transplants in isolation from the whole range of treatment given to people with acute renal problems.

Mr. John Patten: I do not dispute most of the contents of that letter, but to pray it in aid to suggest that my introductory remarks to the effect that the major constraint on transplant surgery was the supply of organs and not cash was wrong would be quite unfair. Nothing in the professor's letter contradicts what I have said. I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts that the professor's letter deals with the general picture in relation to dialysis, an area in which the Government are doing a great deal in the coming year to improve the situation.

Mr. Dobson: I am not sure that the professor would entirely agree. I did not bother to quote his comments
about the Government's response, that they
would do what they could to increase the supply of cadaver kidneys.
He said:
Whilst this was a laudable effort … the real problem is",

and so on, as I have already quoted. Nevertheless, if the Minister wishes to differ from me on that, I am happy for him to do so.
It is worth noting that although we have the highest rate of transplants in Europe our dialysis rate is very low. I have figures, which so far as I know are reliable, on the number of patients receiving treatment of any kind for renal failure. The figure per million of the population is 162 in the United Kingdom, 278 in West Germany, 290 in France and 228 in Italy. Of those, the number on dialysis is 103 in the United Kingdom, 248 in West Germany, 241 in France and 219 in Italy. It is our good performance in transplants, about which I am very glad, that brings up our average performance.

Mrs. Currie: The hon. Gentleman clearly has more up-to-date figures than I managed to dig out without the resources available to Front Bench spokesmen. Does he agree that the difference between the figures that he has given and the figures that I gave for 1981 shows a rapid growth for the United Kingdom in contrast with the rather sluggish growth in the other countries that he mentioned?

Mr. Dobson: This may show how much help is available to Opposition Front Bench Members, but my figures also refer to 1981. I will give the hon. Lady the document after the debate. I leave it at that.
Transplants are an alternative to dialysis in some cases, but they cannot be carried out unless dialysis facilities are available to keep people going until they have had a transplant, and facilities to look after them afterwards, and help them over bad periods. If a transplant fails, dialysis is also necessary. The supply of organs is not the only constraint on the proper treatment of kidney failure in this country.
We also welcome—although the Government did not —the idea of an inquiry into the replacement of opting in by opting out. I will not trouble the House by describing the situation, but those who are totally in favour of opting out should remember that great care needs to be taken that it is not instituted in such a way that something happens that totally offends public opinion and causes people to shy away from agreeing to donate organs. For example, a child or young person who had been seriously injured in an accident might be taken to hospital and pronounced dead and, by the time the parents had arrived on the scene, organs might have been removed from that child. In such a situation there would be a grave danger of public revulsion. Opting out would have to be introduced with great care.
I welcome the idea of an inquiry into opting out but, even before embarking on an inquiry, we need to take great care to make sure that no changes take place that might damage the progress made to date. Nothing must be done to damage public good will towards the transplant programme.
The possibility that anyone was making money out of human organs or conducting a trade in them would also damage good will. There is no such suggestion at the moment, but if such a trend were to develop or if people were to have well-founded suspicions, there would be a grave danger of the voluntary supply of organs drying up again.
I did not expect to mention that point until last Friday, when I sat in on a debate on welfare services and benefits. I was disturbed by a suggestion made by the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Renton). He said:


A consultant in my constituency suggested to me at Christmas that we should examine the thought that the NHS should publish a list of standard drugs and operations that were available effectively free throughout the NHS, and every year the list would be up-dated. But beyond that, the more exotic modern operations, such as organ transplants, and exotic new drugs should not he available free within the NHS." — [Official Report, 10 February 1984; Vol. 53, c. 1153.]
I hope that that is not a development in Conservative thinking that commends itself to other Conservative Members. One of the merits of our present system is that it has been conducted wholly within the NHS. It therefore commands a great deal of public confidence, and questions about the development of a trade in organs do not arise.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) mentioned the possibility of an international trade in organs. That also would be extremely damaging to the transplant programme in this country.
Ministers may be already aware of what is happening, they may need to make further inquiries, or the law may need to be changed. If they feel that changes in the law are needed to prevent the purchase or sale of human organs, they should come to Parliament. They would get such a change through Parliament very quickly. They owe it to everyone concerned in the transplant programme, including potential beneficiaries and donors, to do so. Furthermore, their concern should not be restricted to this country. They are under no obligation to attempt to stamp out any such trade before it develops anywhere in the world. It should be Britain's task, in any international body, to make sure that it does not become possible for rich people to buy organs from poor people in other parts of the world. That would be a desperately bad development.
However, I hope that neither of those developments will arise or will characterise the transplant scene in this country. I hope that the Government's proposal for stepping up publicity for the donation of organs will be successful. We wish it well. We hope, with the hon. Member for Epping Forest, that if the proposals that they have put forward over the last month or so do not work, the Government will be prepared to undertake an inquiry into the possibility of opting out.

Mr. John Hannam: I am sure that the whole House is grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison) for initiating a debate on this important topic.
For me, the debate is opportune for two reasons. First, I have just glanced at my donor card and found that the telephone number on it is totally out of date. Secondly, it was only last week that Elizabeth Ward of the British Federation of Kidney Patients Associations spoke at the all-party disablement group meeting in the House. We were horrified by what she had to tell us. We heard stories of people who had been turned away from kidney treatment not because they were unsuitable but because doctors were being forced to choose who should receive treatment, because of a lack of resouces and facilities for the types of dialysis required in the hospitals.
Throughout my years of work on disablement, I have seen — as many other hon. Members have done —changes in attitudes and developments. We have moved towards concentration on preventive care and research into the causes of disability. However, the number one priority has always had to be the saving of life.
Every year, people die of kidney failure. Large numbers will die this year if they do not receive treatment. According to the British Federation of Kidney Patients Associations, some 3,000 people will die this year and next. They are dying not through end-stage renal failure but essentially — I do not refer just to the present Government but to all Governments with whom I have had dealings — through neglect. Patients are being denied treatment which they require and which it is within our technical resources to provide.
We cannot allow this to continue. The problem has been with us for so long we are becoming blasé about it. Some hon. Members have referred to the problem of the numbers who are and are not receiving treatment. But it is only every five or six months, when a drama erupts and we see on our television screens a weeping wife whose husband, though not old, has been in effect sentenced to die because of the failure to provide treatment for him, that we realise the importance and seriousness of the problem. This is an immensely valuable debate as it makes us have another hard look at a problem of danger to life.
Some of the people who are being sentenced as I have described are elderly and disabled. Elizabeth Ward gave us examples that showed that it is not just the elderly or sick who are being denied treatment. Some young people with social handicaps are denied treatment because doctors are influenced by such factors and are able to afford treatment for only one patient. I do not want to go into great detail on this vast subject but I should like to highlight three principal areas of anxiety. The first is the disparity in the number of patients which regional health authorities treat. The second is our poor record of treatment in comparison with our European counterparts. The third is the range of treatments for patients with renal failure. I shall deal with the last first.
The number of transplants in Britain has compared favourably with our European neighbours. Britain has treated 42 per cent. of patients as compared with only 9 per cent. in West Germany, 12 per cent. in France arid 28 per cent. in Belgium. I strongly welcome that success story. There can be no doubt that successful transplantation enables a patient to lead a much more independent and fulfilling life than does dialysis. Moreover, as has been said, it is the most cost-effective method of treatment.
My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) gave, from her own experience, details of what has happened in that area. It is ironical that my view is slightly different from hers. Our over-dependence on transplants has contributed to the large number of people who are dying through lack of dialysis and other treatment. In the past 15 years we have relied on transplants and have not invested to the same extent as most other western European countries in dialysis facilities. I shall give figures for 1981. In West Germany, 90 per cent. of kidney patients were on dialysis. In France the figure was 8'7 per cent. and in Italy it was 91 per cent. Because of the accent on the transplant scheme in Britain, only 55 per cent. of our kidney patients were on dialysis.
In 1982, Britain carried out more transplants than in any previous year. We can be proud of that, but the number of patients awaiting transplants is increasing steadily. In 1982, 2,225 patients were waiting for a transplant. That number has increased by about 20 a month. I understand that 2,443 people were waiting for a transplant in 1983 and my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest said that 2,600 people are waiting for transplants this year.


Therefore, although the number of transplants is increasing, the number of people waiting for them is increasing faster.
Because Britain treats only about one half of its kidney patients, about half of those 2,000 or so patients will receive the necessary treatment, the rest being turned away with little hope of a cure for a disability that is perfectly curable. As I have said, it requires a television programme to isolate one or two cases to bring home the tearful reality of it all.
The number of patients accepted for treatment depends heavily on the supply of kidneys. We cannot, as my hon. Friend the Minister pointed out, allow that imbalance to continue. Every effort is being made to increase the number of donors. However, although the number of patients requiring treatment is rising, the supply of kidneys is not. It is known that the supply of kidneys has fallen since the introduction of the compulsory wearing of seat belts. I am not convinced that the answer lies entirely with the donor card scheme as presently constituted or possibly proposed. If the scheme does not supply enough kidneys and even if there was a sufficient supply, extra finance and capital investment would be required to carry out alternative treatment.
I have always carried a kidney donor card. Unfortunately, far too few other people carry them, as the figures have shown. A recent survey showed that 66 per cent. of the adult population were willing to donate kidneys but that only some 20 per cent. of them carry a card. I am pleased that the Department of Health and Social Security is planning a big new publicity campaign for 1984. I warmly welcome it but regard it as only a small step in a morass of problems.

Mr. John Patten: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend's work for the disabled and his long-lasting and far from superficial interest in these matters. Perhaps I can take a second opportunity to knock on the head a myth that seems to have grown up in the Chamber and in the popular press—that since the introduction of the compulsory wearing of seat belts in motor cars, something of which I was strongly in favour, the supply of kidneys has declined. The precise reverse is the case. The supply increased during 1983.

Mr. Hannam: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for correcting me. I hope that evidence on the House making the wearing of seat belts compulsory will lead us to take similar action when considering opting out rather than opting in. It is possible that, an inquiry having been held, the Government might decide to give a similar three-year trial for a contracting-out scheme to see whether it produces the benefits that we can now see resulting from the seat belt legislation.
I do not believe that the donor scheme and the transplant scheme will produce the answer to the many major problems that we face. We must find some way in which to create resources to produce the dialysis treatment which will save the thousands of lives that are lost each year. I put it to my hon. Friend the Minister that we must establish priorities. We have difficulty identifying which are the good and which the bad regional health authorities, but we know that there are large variations in their provisions. It is clear that they are establishing different priorities. The priority must be to save life.
I have always supported developments such as bringing the mentally handicapped out into the community, but if we must make a choice between spending money on community care for the mentally handicapped, along with various other schemes which affect their well-being and which are desirable in the long term and the saving of life, we must make saving life the highest priority. We have developed the techniques, the expertise and the ability to do that and it must receive the highest priority.
I should like my hon. Friend the Minister seriously to consider reappraising the priorities. I fully understand the problem of overall resources and the difficulties that regional health authorities face, but Parliament and the Government must set the number one priority which exists so clearly in our minds. I ask him to re-examine the use of resources and the imbalance between health authorities and to try to give the highest priority to ending the loss of thousands of lives each year.

Mr. John Farr: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison) and colleagues on both sides of the House on an interesting debate. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest on his motion. There are a few key words in lines 5 and 6—
appeals to the Press Council … to respect the anonymity of those donors".
No doubt the House will agree with my hon. Friend's motion but I can tell him from bitter experience that it is no use appealing to the Press Council. It has little intention of doing anything about bringing offenders into line and no real power to do so. Nearly four years ago there was a tragic incident in my constituency. A young girl of 17 had a donor card on her and was killed working at a petrol pump. Written across her donor card in large letters was the word "Anonymous". Her heart was transferred to Papworth hospital at night. At some point the information was leaked, and the next day all the ghouls of the Fleet street press descended upon the little village in my constituency and harassed the anguished parents. Time does not allow me to tell the House exactly what happened, but some newspapers were especially bad. Worst of all was the Daily Mail, whose reporters went into the adjacent house and tried to get a photograph of a school group showing the dead girl from the daughter of the family living there so that it could be published. One or two other newspapers behaved well. The Guardian had a photograph which it declined to release, and BBC radio Leicester also declined to give publicity to the matter, because the family had agreed that Carol should have a donor card provided that the whole set-up was anonymous.
As a result of the incident I introduced a Bill in 1980 under the ten-minute rule procedure, which received the consent of the House, requesting that a form of anonymity be guaranteed to would-be donors, not only of hearts, but any other organ.
Since 1980, when a heart transplant was an event, transplants of more sophisticated organs than hearts are taking place more frequently. The law has been tightened a tiny bit, but I do not believe that there exists the guarantee of anonymity on which a donor and his or her family may occasionally wish to insist. After that tragic case involving Carol, which received so much publicity, her parents had to have police protection, and had to have their original telephone disconnected and an ex-directory


number given to them. After that bad publicity, the supply of organ donors slumped for several weeks. It is part and parcel of an effective organ donor system that we should have an effective system of anonymity when it is required.
I complained to the Press Council in conjunction with Carol's parents and after much correspondence our complaints centred on the scandalous behaviour of the Daily Mail correspondents. All that the Press Council could do was to send me and her parents a letter expressing its dislike and distaste for what the Daily Mail had done. It is time that the Press Council put its house in order, and awarded itself the ability to admonish and, if necessary, fine or remove the union card, or whatever they have, from not only journalists but editors when they have been guilty of especially bad behaviour. There are rogue reporters and rogue editors. I hope that the Press Council will, sooner rather than later, do something to tighten up its system. Then instead of wringing its hands and sending a letter of apology, it can at least bring home its displeasure in a more unpleasant way to those who have been responsible for boosting circulation by distasteful means.

Mr. John Patten: rose—

Mr. Farr: I am on a timetable, but my hon. Friend may intervene.

Mr. Patten: I did not realise that timetables existed in the Chamber, any more than do planted questions, but no doubt that will be expunged from the record tomorrow by Hansard's eagle eye.
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is peculiar that when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced on Friday 20 January the fact that there had been a record number of transplants during 1983 — which I also reported to the House this afternoon—not one national newspaper thought that that was a worthwhile piece of news to carry?

Mr. Farr: I am glad that I gave way to my hon. Friend, because he has hit the nail on the head. His remarks illustrate what I have been trying to put before the House.
I fully support my hon. Friend's motion. I am not happy about the idea of a system of opting out, because it could cause anguish in some families which, for reasons of their own, do not wish to be associated with organ donation. I should prefer the avenue suggested by my hon. Friend the Minister: the launch of an intensified publicity campaign to encourage more voluntary donors.
What about those who do not have donor cards with them? We all wish to be donors, and each member of Leicester city and county councils received donor cards years ago. However, I am afraid that I have lost mine. Since the need to know whether a person is a donor can occur in a split second, perhaps we could have a more permanent and meaningful identification. There could be a stamp on one's tax disc on a vehicle saying "donor" or "donor (anonymous)", if anonymity were requested. We could put a similar stamp on driving licences, which are always carried. In today's busy world, with so much correspondence, papers, credit cards and bills, the organ donor's card, which should be the most important of the documents that we carry, is shoved to one side and overlooked.
With those minor suggestions, I welcome my hon. Friend's motion and I hope that he is successful in having another debate on this important subject soon.

Mr. Richard Tracey: It is a great privilege to speak in this important debate, which was so sensitively introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison). I am glad to be able to join hands with colleagues on both sides of the House in reaching out to educate and inform the public about the need for donors and the need to make transplants possible and to allow them to increase.
I also have the privilege of being the Member of Parliament for the dedicated and persistent parents of little Ben Hardwick, aged two, who has successfully — the news would appear to show this — undergone a liver transplant in Addenbrooke's hospital, Cambridge.
Not many years ago, when I was a reporter at the BBC, I interviewed Professor Christian Barnard just after he had performed the first heart transplant operation. I remember thinking that he was a miracle man who had acquired the power of laying on hands and healing those who, a few years before, would have been in dire straits. It is not that many years since the sensation of heart transplant operations was in the news; but now we hear —it has been mentioned several times this afternoon—of 1,000 kidney transplants in a year. There is an unfortunate queue of almost 2,500 people who need such transplants, but Britain leads the world in this miracle of surgery, as it does in so many other matters.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest and the Minister said, demand seriously exceeds supply. We as Members of Parliament and, I hope, the wider world of press and broadcasting listening to us, must educate the public in the need for more and more donors. It is perhaps reasonable to hope that people might consider the donation of their heart, kidneys, liver or corneas in the same way as so many thousands of people consider the donation of their blood. I know that it seems smaller within the total of human knowledge and experience, but our target should be to see that the public have this knowledge and perspective of the need to donate those parts of the body which can save lives. As has been mentioned, doctors are afraid to approach the parents or next of kin of victims of road or other accidents — the kind of people whose organs could be donated for transplant.
In his wise way, my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) has put his finger on one of the root causes. It is, as I have to admit as a former member of the press corps, the unfortunate way that the press can sometimes harass people for photographs of their dead relatives. That is part of the education. My hon. Friend was right when he said that our hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest was perceptive in including in his motion the way in which the Press Council and Fleet street should treat these cases and that the donation of organs and transplants should not be regarded as sensations in the news. It is a most important and sensitive area of surgery, and must be treated as such.
I suppose that people have a fear of filling in the donor card—they do not want to look forward to their own death—but we must recognise—I am as guilty as many others because I have not yet filled in the donor card—what a valuable gesture we can make towards saving lives. The third problem, of which we have heard from some hon. Members, is that people have filled in a card, and then lost it.
I want to discuss education, and some of the figures that have been bandied across the Chamber. I mentioned Ben Hardwick, the son of my constituents. For those who were unable to see the sensitively handled BBC television programme "That's Life", perhaps I could go over some of the problems that faced his 22-year-old mother.
Ben Hardwick suffers from a complaint called billiary atresia, which is a blockage of the bile duct. It is suffered by one in 14,000 children. It was first diagnosed when he was three weeks old, and it was confirmed when he was five weeks old. One can understand the sheer horror felt by that young mother, then aged 20, when she realised that her child was likely to die. She is a most persistent and dedicated mother, to whom I pay tribute. She read that it was just possible that a transplant could save the life of her young son.
After two months Ben underwent major surgery, in which his bowel was attached to his liver to create the necessary loop to draw the bile to a bag outside his body. It was still plain to the mother that that would be only temporary. Since then, and since he went into Kingston hospital last autumn, when it was believed that he would die, she has said that she went practically berserk, as I am sure all hon. Members would understand.
Mrs. Hardwick did not give up. The problem was that there was no donor. No matter what inquiries were made by the hospital staff, in Kingston and further afield, they could not find a donor. Mrs. Hardwick decided to use the media in a most positive way, as she wrote to Miss Esther Rantzen of the "That's Life" television programme. Those of us who have seen the programme will be aware that for three or four weeks details were given with great sensitivity to the public. It illustrated one of the best uses of community television.
The way in which the donor was found is interesting. It was not, as one might have expected, a doctor who saw the programme and went to the relatives of a terminally ill child. In fact, the programme was seen by the wife of an anaesthetist at a Nottingham hospital. When he arrived home from his duties at the hospital, his wife happened to tell him that this programme had appeared on BBC television. Being quick-thinking, he fortunately realised that there was a child in the Nottingham hospital who had

a slim chance of living. He went to the parents of the child, Matthew Fewkes, and they were only too happy to say that if their child died — unfortunately he did in the following few days—his liver could be donated to save Ben Hardwick. That rounds off a wonderful story of parental dedication, and great feeling by the parents in Nottingham.
What emerges from the debate and the news stories, and interviews with the parents in Nottingham, is that doctors need not fear asking parents to donate their children's organs in such sad cases.
I have been privileged to have been sent some confidential letters which were written to the "That's Life" programme. I wonder whether I might quote some lines without identifying the parents. One says:
Three months ago our baby son died, he was two months old.… What a blessing it would have been to a baby like Ben
if their child
had also been a donor to save another life. To us it would have meant that we hadn't lost him totally and part of him, however tiny, would have lived on.
Another letter of great feeling said:
We lost our little boy through a cot death three weeks ago. No words can describe how we feel, and at the time of his death it was hard to take in what anyone was saying, but if only we had been asked if we would mind them taking his liver or any other organ I think it would help some of the pain we are feeling now.
Those are samples of the hundreds of letters that Miss Esther Rantzen and her production team are receiving. The production staff of the programme have asked me to put across two messages. The first is to urge doctors and nurses not to fear approaching the parents of children or others in intensive care wards. The parents and next of kin concerned will probably be only too pleased to be asked; indeed, they cannot understand why they are not asked. They are very unhappy and sad, months later, when they feel that they could have done something to help.

Mr. Dalyell: That is right.

Mr. Tracey: There is a belief that psychiatric advice should be available in case people wish to consult a psychiatrist about the matter.
The second important point made by the "That's Life" team is that the donor should be registered—

It being Seven o'clock, proceedings on the motion lapsed, pursuant to Standing Order No. 6 (Precedence of Government Business).

Nottinghamshire County Council Bill [Lords] (By Order)

As amended, further considered.

Clause 6

NOTICE OF STREET PROCESSIONS

Amendment proposed [19 January], No. 1 in page 7, line 3, leave out clause 6.—[Ms. Harman.]

Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.

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Mr. Ian Mikardo: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am well aware that the selection and grouping of amendments is entirely within your discretion, and in normal circumstances I would not dream of calling that selection and grouping into question. With respect, I draw your attention to the position that arises out of your decision to group with amendment No. 1 the following amendments: No. 5, in page 7, line 26, leave out subsection (4).
No. 6, in page 7, line 34, at end insert—
'(4A) The Chief Constable shall prepare the code of practice provided for in subsection (4) above as soon as may be after the passing of this Act, and shall forward a copy of it to the Secretary of State for the Home Department; and the Secretary of State for the Home Department shall cause further copies to be laid before each House of Parliament:
Provided that the Chief Constable may from time to time amend the code of practice, and in that case shall forward a copy of the code as amended to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who shall cause copies of the code as amended to be laid before each House of Parliament.'
As you will know, Mr. Speaker, amendment No. 1 was moved at our last sitting on 19 January by my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman), since when amendments Nos. 5 and 6 have been tabled. If amendments Nos. 5 and 6 had been tabled on 19 January, I am certain that my hon. Friend would have addressed part of her observations to the substance of those amendments. Those amendments represent a fall-back position—a common practice in Committee and in the House, as you know—in the event of amendment No. 1 being defeated. But as my hon. Friend had spoken on 19 January on amendment No. 1, she will be prevented from speaking again. Therefore, she will not have the opportunity of commenting—as I know she would have wished—on amendments Nos. 5 and 6.
I realise that my hon. Friend can speak again with the leave of the House, but it takes only one hon. Member to deny that leave, and I am not sure that all hon. Members would wish to give my hon. Friend leave. Therefore, may I put it to you that it would be fair to my hon. Friend if amendments Nos. 5 and 6 were to be grouped separately from amendment No. 1.

Mr. Speaker: I thank the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) for giving me notice of his point of order. In grouping amendments Nos. 5 and 6 with amendment No. 1, I had no desire to exclude the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman) from speaking to amendments Nos. 5 and 6, which have been tabled by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett). My object in grouping the amendments was to enable them to be debated. If amendments Nos. 5 and 6 had not been

grouped with amendment No. 1, they would have fallen if amendment No. 1 had been agreed to, and could not then have been debated.
I do not propose to change my selection. On the other hand, since the amendments represent an attempt at compromise, I shall have no objection to the hon. Member for Peckham speaking again on the Question before the House, provided that she limits herself strictly to the content of amendments Nos. 5 and 6 and does not range over the whole of clause 6.
I hope that, in the light of what the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar has said, the House will give the hon. Member for Peckham leave to speak.

Mr. Mikardo: May I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for that ruling and for your observation? I share your hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham will have leave to address the House on the subject of amendments Nos. 5 and 6.

Mr. Richard Ottaway: I wish to object, Mr. Speaker—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The question has not yet arisen. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman, in the light of what I have said about the matter, will have second thoughts. But I must put the Question if there is no one else who wishes to speak on the matter.

Mr. Dave Nellist: I wish to speak to clause 6, concerning the right to hold processions and demonstrations. The Bill seeks to introduce a criminal offence. Should the organisers of a demonstration not give the required notice under the Bill, those who have organised it will be liable to criminal proceedings and fined.
Over the past century or more, many of the rights that working people in Britain enjoy—including the right to vote—were won as a result of protests, marches and demonstrations, and by the coming together of public feeling. Therefore, it is wrong that a Bill should seek to limit the rights of freedom of assembly, of demonstration and of procession, thereby curtailing free speech within a particular area.
It is notable that many Conservative Members have spent much time, particularly in the past three or four years, in arguing about the lack of human rights in Eastern European countries that I would categorise as being in the hands of a Stalinist bureaucracy. In those countries, for millions of working people the rights of assembly, of free speech, and of belonging to a political party of their own choice or a trade union of their choice, are curtailed, as are the rights to demonstration and to assembly. Therefore, it seems a little odd that supporters of the Tory party should seek to confuse the lack of rights enjoyed by people in eastern Europe with the genuine ideas of Socialism in Britain. On the one hand, they criticise the lack of freedom in eastern Europe; on the other hand, by their presence here tonight, they seek to support the erosion of freedoms that can only be guaranteed by the pressure of working people in Britain.
It has been said in many learned reports on public order and on the rights of procession that in approximately 80 per cent. of all cases the organisers of processions give notice to the police. That is understandable. Anyone organising a procession or demonstration wishes to get the maximum publicity to ensure the largest possible turnout.


The police, with their ever-increasing resources, do not seem to have too much trouble in finding out about the majority of demonstrations.
Reports by Lord Scarman and others have referred to perhaps 20 per cent. of demonstrations of which notice has not been given. But when, during the Committee stage of the Bill, we asked the representatives of the police in Nottingham what problems they had with the demonstrations of which they had not been given notice, they could not give us one example.
The Bill, by clause 6, seeks to limit the spontaneous right of assembly, of procession and demonstration, and it is incumbent on the promoters, and the Tory Members present here tonight, to justify to this House and to working people outside, by practical examples, why they think it is necessary to have such a clause in the Bill. The clause is not reflected in the local legislation of the surrounding authorities of South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and Derbyshire. Within the areas of those authorities, no such provision exists to limit the organisers of a demonstration through the requirement to give notice of it. Spontaneous demonstrations arise from circumstances to which they are an immediate and necessary response. I shall give an example that will illustrate the process. Let us suppose that there were a serious traffic accident and a young child was maimed or killed. I know from reading my local papers and the national press the feelings that can be engendered among parents in that area. I have seen reports of parents organising a spontaneous demonstration, perhaps to block the road for an hour or so to show the need for a pelican crossing or a zebra crossing.
Under the clause, if parents organise such a demonstration and then proceed to march to the town hall to demonstrate to their local council the need for improved facilities on the road to prevent such serious accidents, such action will be illegal. The organisers of such a demonstration, if it were possible to identify them—this is another point that we may debate later—could be liable to fines of up to £200.

Mr. Gerald Bermingham: Is there not an even more ludicrous example than that which my hon. Friend has just used? If the accident occurred, for example, on the A52, which runs between Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, to the Doncaster area, where it crosses into the constituency of Bassetlaw, a demonstration could legitimately and spontaneously start in south Yorkshire or Derbyshire but, by the time that it got to the county border — if it could find it— it would have had to give 24 hours' notice to turn an illegal demonstration into a legal event. That shows how ludicrous it is for one county council to seek to have a time limit when the surrounding areas have no such time limit.

Mr. Nellist: That example, particularly using the road that my hon. Friend described, proves my point. The fact that the areas that surround Nottinghamshire — south Yorkshire, west Yorkshire and Derbyshire — have no such provision could cause the problem that he explained. There would be no requirement in those areas for a procession to give notice whereas if the Bill were to be passed, that requirement would be in force within Nottinghamshire. That would cause problems where parents organised, in my hypothetical case, such a

demonstration against the inadequacies of a particular stretch of road and the dangers that vehicles might cause to children.
My second example is that of a spontaneous demonstration about unemployment caused by a factory closure or redundancies announced by management. For a trade union to generate a mood among its members of solidarity, of sticking together and not allowing the management, sometimes at the behest of the Tory Government, to cause job losses, it is often necessary to hold a meeting and to protest at a town hall, a Manpower Services Commission office, the head office of the company at the centre of town, or a number of other places. Trade unionists, who initiated most of the rights that working people enjoy in Britain, would be under the threat of having committed an illegal act if the clause were to go through.
The rights of freedom of assembly and to process are a demonstration of the democratic rights that we still enjoy, although some of my hon. Friends may think that they are limited. Democracy is more than placing 13 or 14 crosses on a ballot paper and electing Parliaments during one's lifetime. It is more than electing a county council every four years. Democracy is about participation in the life of society, and the rights to freedom of demonstration and assembly and to free speech are attacked by the clause.
7.15 pm
Many organisations have launched petitions and complaints about clause 6 and the restrictions on the freedoms to demonstrate and process. One of the organisations, the National Council for Civil Liberties, has sent material to the Committee and to other hon. Members. It points out that while, in the United Kingdom, there is no constitutional freedom of assembly that includes the right of possession and therefore meetings and processions are subject to the law of trespass, the United Kingdom is the signatory of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted in 1948 by the United Nations. That provides that everyone has the right to freedom, of peaceful assembly and of association. The United Kingdom is also signatory to the European convention of 1950 and has ratified article 11, which provides that everyone has the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of association. Despite restrictions placed on the freedom of demonstration by English domestic law, these obligations should apply in favour of freedom of expression and association. Clause 6 seeks to restrict that freedom.
I have said that the clause seeks to make the organisation of spontaneous demonstrations a criminal offence. I have tried to give community examples, such as that of parents and the effects of traffic, and industrial examples, such as that of the possibility of redundancies and factory closures. However, the clause also generates organisational problems. Those who are organising street demonstrations will be caused problems by the inclusion of the words:
as soon as reasonably practicable".
That would be difficult to prove in a court of law to the satisfaction of all concerned. If parents were to organise a spontaneous demonstration over the death of a child on the road, and at the same time tell the police, who would decide whether sufficient notice has been given? I have always thought that in English law one is innocent until proven guilty. In other words, the proof of guilt in a


criminal offence lies with those who are prosecuting. With my limited knowledge of the law, it would seem to me that clause 6 would reverse that process and put the burden of proof on those who had organised that demonstration to show that they did not commit a criminal offence. That is a wider implication than can be dealt with by one local Bill from one local county council.
What is more, this Bill sets a precedent, as other Bills have set precedents. Political control can be exercised over the content of demonstrations. It could be argued that were this to remain on the local statute book in Nottinghamshire, it might give encouragement to other councils which seek to bring similar laws from the other place to this Chamber. That encouragement could induce other councils, perhaps less sympathetic in their political nature than Nottingham council, to differentiate between demonstrations that they like and those that they do not. A council could decide in some cases that the notice given for a demonstration with which it was sympathetic was all right but the notice given for a demonstration with which it was out of sympathy was not. Such a political orientation of the decision of councillors would be reinforced if the clause were to be passed. Why is it that the majority support given to the Bill in all stages of its passage through Parliament has come from Tory Members? By and large, the response of organisations within Nottinghamshire connected with the Labour movement has been overwhelmingly against this clause being introduced.
The local organisations that have petitioned for the removal of clause 6 include the Nottinghamshire association of trades councils, the Nottingham and district trades council, the Worksop and district trades council, the National Union of Public Employees social services branch Nottingham, the NUPE divisional council Nottingham, the Association of Professional, Executive, Clerical and Computer Staff Nottingham No. 1 branch, the regional executive of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education, Park Labour party, Beeston Labour party, Lenton branch Labour party, Newark and district trades council, Stapleford and Beeston trades council, Mansfield and district trades council, Retford and district trades council, Nottinghamshire administrative, professional and clerical branch of NUPE, the Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs Nottingham university branch, and a number of single-issue campaigns and other organisations in the area.
That widespread opposition of numerous democratic organisations in the Nottinghamshire area represents the views of tens of thousands of workers. Each trades council has a number of affiliated trade union branches, which may have between a few hundred and 1,000 members. So why, given that opposition, do Conservative Members support the clause?

Mr. Ottaway: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that at 4 o'clock this afternoon, the Nottingham branch of the NCCL said that it had no objection to the Bill and advised hon. Members to abstain?

Mr. J. D. Concannon: I do not mind my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) building his case, but it is not true to say that the organisations that he read out represent a large number of people in Nottinghamshire. Those organisations represent only a minuscule proportion of the people of Nottinghamshire. If my hon. Friend had come up with a

long list of trade union and Labour parties in the area, I might take a different view, but I have not had one letter of complaint from anyone in Nottinghamshire.

Mr. Nellist: The NCCL is a national organisation and it was the national body which made known its opposition to the Bill. I have not had the opportunity to consult the local branch within the last three hours, but I say to both hon. Members who have intervened that I stand by the list that I read out. Each trades council has an affiliated membership, in most cases comprising tens of thousands of members. Those councils will have considered the matter and reported in their minutes that they oppose clause 6. The minutes will have been circulated to each affiliated trade union and read out at each branch meeting. That sort of representative democracy in the trade union movement is an adequate test of the opinion of the organisations that are most likely to organise marches, demonstrations and processions in Nottinghamshire.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: Does my hon. Friend agree that it seems a strange argument for anyone to put forward that, although trades councils comprise members of various trade unions in their areas, they should not be taken notice of? After all, they are acting as a sort of representative democracy. Does my hon. Friend agree that there are many other occasions when, say, Mansfield trades council, Worksop trades council or Newark trades council makes representations to Labour Members and it would be strange to find that any Labour Member objected to a trades council, which is comprised of representatives of various trade unions, making such representations?
We tend to accept that that is a form of representative democracy. Two miners are elected by their NUM branch to serve on, say, Mansfield trades council and they act on behalf of that branch. Since trades councils make representations on countless other occasions and we accept that the trades council system is a form of representative democracy, surely we ought to accept that on this occasion as well.

Mr. Nellist: I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification of the position in the area from which he comes. He has outlined correctly the representational nature of those trades councils.
I have been interested to note that support for the Bill comes overwhelmingly from Conservative Members. I wondered why that was so. Many organisations in Nottinghamshire have protested about clause 6. Could it be that Conservative Members look a little further into the future when considering the use of such clauses? Are they taking what was once called the long view of history?
I wish to draw the attention of the House and of working people outside to two crucial reasons why the Bill should not be passed in its present form. I shall draw a lesson from events in London 100 years ago, which I regard as extremely apposite to the Bill.
In London 100 years ago, poverty was much deeper and the conditions of working people — in terms of unemployment, living standards and so on— were, by any objective measurement, far worse than they are today. I believe that the programmes and policies of the Government are rapidly taking us back towards those conditions.
I have been reading about conditions in those days and about the marches of the unemployed in London. Because of the laws restricting demonstrations, a favourite tactic


was to organise the swelling of church congregations and to use them as a platform for the discussion of poverty and the need for jobs. In October 1887, a demonstration took place following a march to Westminster by a huge number of unemployed people. The 19th century equivalent of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Sir Charles Warren, had hundreds of police officers, the Grenadier guards and a host of other forces on duty to contain that demonstration.
The demonstrators went into Westminster abbey and spoke to Canon Rowsell who allowed them to take part in the service, which they did, without interrupting it. Unfortunately, when they tried to leave the abbey, the reactionary Sir Charles Warren instructed the police to apprehend people, attack marchers and so on. After that demonstration, meetings took place daily, particularly in Hyde park. Even the Illustrated London News, which was not a particularly liberal paper, said that there were thousands of demonstrators protesting about unemployment.
The people who assembled in Hyde park to protest about unemployment attempted to march to Trafalgar square. The square was built between 1829 and 1841 and in the first six years after its completion — it was declared Crown property in 1844 — it was the responsibility of the commissioners of woods and forests. I am not sure how many woods and forests there were in the Trafalgar square area at that time. Later it was transferred to the Commissioner of Works. The right to prohibit public meetings in the square was assumed in this House by a majority of 316 to 224 in March 1888. The 3,000 or 4,000 demonstrators who left Hyde Park to demonstrate about mass unemployment and poverty swelled to a number of 10,000 as they marched through London, and they wanted to assemble in Trafalgar square. Sir Charles Warren attempted to prevent that. A few days later he issued a notice that gave him the power, with the sanction of the Secretary of State and the Commissioner of Her Majesty's Works and Public Buildings, until further instruction, to order that no public meetings would be allowed to assemble in Trafalgar square, nor would speeches be allowed to be delivered—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): Order. The House is debating not whether demonstrations should be held, but whether notice should be given. I ask the hon. Gentleman to address his remarks to clause 6.

Mr. Nellist: Despite that history of London today no local law is in operation that seeks to give a period of notice within which the organisers of a demonstration in London must inform the authorities. About 600 to 800 demonstrations take place a year in London. Despite a history of mass national protest, when those tens of thousands of workers illegally marched from Hyde park to Trafalgar square some 97 years ago, and the response of the police commissioner in banning public meetings, no requirement of notice to demonstrate in London exists.
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I ask Conservative Members who support the clause why, despite repeated requests in debate for example in the area of Nottinghamshire, on which they rest their case, no such example has been given. I ask Conservative Members why it is necessary to have such a clause, in the absence

of such an example. It is not necessary to go back 100 years. An example in the last five, 10, 15, 20 years would be adequate to demonstrate why it is necessary to give notice of a procession.
Conservative Members may be looking further into the future, as I suggested. While there has been no example in the last five, 10, 15 years of the necessity to enforce such a provision because of spontaneous demonstrations of the unemployed, or of redundant industrial workers, the Government may be anticipating the necessity for such a provision as their policies of mass unemployment and of impoverishment of working people take further effect.
I consider next the attitude of those who advise local councils on the need for notice of processions, and the imposition of fines if no such notice is given. The most outspoken of such advice, which is given not only nationally but to the local chief constables in each area, including Nottingham, is that which comes from such chief constables as Mr. Anderton of the north-west area. In course of the BBC 1 programme "Question Time" on 16 October 1979 he said:
I think that from the police point of view … basic crime … theft, burglary, even violent crime … will not be the predominant police feature. What will be the matter of greatest concern to me will be the covert and ultimately overt attempt to overthrow democracy, to subvert the authority of the state, and, in fact to involve themselves in acts of sedition designed to destroy our parliamentary system and the democratic government in this country.
The Association of Chief Police Officers, to which Mr. Anderton belongs, complained to the parliamentary Select Committee on Home Affairs in February 1980 that
the right to demonstrate is widely exploited, and marching is the most chosen form of demonstration adopted by protestors. Irrespective of the peaceful nature of the procession the numbers involved bring town centres to a halt, business is disrupted and the public bus services is thrown out of schedule. In short, a general annoyance is created to the normal process of daily life.
Despite the clarification given by one of my hon. Friends when the House last debated the subject, I firmly believe that senior police officers and police chiefs, acting under the general advice of the Association of Chief Police Officers, and repeating the protest they made to the Select Committee on Home Affairs in February 1980, are promoting in the Nottinghamshire County Council Bill —and in Bills relating to other areas in the other place, destined to come before the House —the extension of the control of marches by requiring advance notice and seeking to impose their own code of practice on demonstrators.
The Select Committee on Home Affairs recommended in February 1980
that organisers of marches be legally requird to give at least seventy-two hours' advance notice"—
the clause under consideration provides for a different period of notice of their intentions, or such notice as may be
reasonably practicable after that time.
As I said earlier, I believe that "reasonably practicable" will give rise to a host of problems relating to the burden of proof of what is reasonably practicable when organising a demonstration. The Select Committee recommendation stated that, in the case of organising a demonstration,
it would then be an offence, punishable by a fine of £400"—
this provision differs again from that in the clause under discussion dealing with proceeding with a march without notice, or contrary to police direction.
By the promotion of this clause by Nottinghamshire county council, receiving, as it does, support from


Conservative Members, the democratic rights of working people, the right to freedom of association and of assembly and the right spontaneously to put a point of view to working people, through the organisation of marches and demonstrations, are put at risk and threatened.
Much was made in an earlier debate of the fact that this is not an uncommon measure, and that approximately 107 local authorities have included such a clause in local legislation. To my understanding that is less than a quarter of the total number of local authorities in the country. I still think it is necessary for Conservative Members who support the Bill to put before the House, and before working people who read reports of our debates, their reasons for seeking to insert such clauses in private Members' Bills covering one quarter of the country as opposed to the majority, of the country, that is not so covered. Do the Government anticipate problems in the Nottinghamshire area with spontaneous demonstrations of an industrial or community nature?
Although it is a small clause in a Bill that began in the other place and although until today it may have attracted little national publicity, there has been debate and argument of the kind that has taken place in the Nottinghamshire area—and that largely resulting from the organisations that I mentioned having promoted opposition to the clause. Accordingly, I argue that the traditional rights of freedom of assembly gained by the Labour movement, and the right to demonstrate and process without giving notice, are an essential feature of democracy. It is imperative to be able to hold meetings and protest by marching on a town hall, or company headquarters to protest about redundancies. The requirement to give notice is a restriction upon that right. During the remainder of the debate I hope that Government supporters will say why they support the clause. I also hope that others of my hon. Friends will explain in greater detail our opposition to the clause.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Douglas Hurd): It may perhaps help the House if I intervene at this stage to give the Government's view on clause 6, which is the subject of the amendment. I can do that reasonably briefly.
Clause 6 requires a person who organises or conducts a procession through any street in the county to give notice of his intention to the chief officer of police, the notice to be given 24 hours before the beginning of the procession or as soon as is reasonably practicable.
As with other similar provisions in local legislation which has already been before and approved by the House, it must be for the House in the end to decide whether the promoters have made out a case for the provision in the light of circumstances in the county of Nottinghamshire. But, from the Government's point of view, there is no objection to the clause.
I shall deal with a couple of matters which have arisen in the debate because they affect Government policy.
I was asked about national legislation to introduce an advance notice requirement on the organisers of processions. Hon. Members will be aware that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland are now conducting a review of the Public Order Act and related legislation. One of the issues being considered is whether a national requirement to give advance notice of processions should be imposed. Work on the review

continues. I cannot give a precise date for its completion. We hope that it will be possible to complete the work and announce conclusions within the next few months, as I explained on 19 January in a written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, South-West (Mr. Madel).
Hon. Members may suggest that, if that is the case, clause 6 of the Nottinghamshire County Council Bill should be shelved pending the outcome of the review. That is not a valid argument. I cannot anticipate the conclusions to which the review will come, but, even if the review concluded that national legislation including an advance notice requirement should be introduced, the legislation might not follow quickly. In view of the present procedure in Nottinghamshire, I think that it would be wrong to remove clause 6 from the Bill simply because of the existence of a review of public order law.

Mr. Mikardo: The Minister of State partly anticipated what I was about to say. When that review is finished—the right hon. Gentleman says that he cannot anticipate what it will say—it is certain that one of two events will follow. Either there will be no legislation or there will be some legislation. If there is no legislation, that will give Nottinghamshire a strong case after that for introducing its measure. If there is to be legislation, either it is the same as Nottinghamshire's in which case the county does not need it and can wait, or it is different from Nottinghamshire's, in which case the county will be at variance with national legislation, which is not desirable. Does not all that add up to a case for Nottinghamshire biding its time?

Mr. Hurd: Not a very strong case. We have a provision which has been embodied in local government legislation passed by the House. We have a review of national legislation on the matter which is not complete and the content of which is uncertain. After that there would be uncertainty about the timing and content of legislation that the House would approve. The uncertainties are such that it would not be a valid argument against this provision to say that this review was in progress.
There is the wider argument that I have also heard from Opposition Members that a provision such as clause 6 should, by its very nature, be national rather than local legislation. But when the principles governing local Bills following the Local Government Act 1972 were being established, the local authority associations and their supporters persuaded Parliament that a provision should not fall simply because it could be seen to have a national character. Since the reorganisation of local government in 1974, seven local measures including a requirement to give advance notice of processions have been enacted. It follows that Parliament has not taken the view that, as a matter of principle, such provisions should not be included in local legislation.

Mr. Bermingham: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that this is the sort of controversial measure contained in a local government Bill that has national implications, for the reasons that I gave earlier when I intervened in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist)? Does the right hon. Gentleman further agree, therefore, that he has just


argued against himself when suggesting that, because a national review is going on, this is not the moment to debate the subject? Surely it would make sense to have a national provision, and that can come only at the end of the review. Therefore, should not all matters logically wait until then?

Mr. Hurd: It may be that at the end of the day the House will decide in favour of a national provision. But we are a long way from that stage and there is no reason why the House should not decide that Nottinghamshire, like other counties which have gone before it in this respect, is entitled to this clause. That is a matter for the House to decide. From the Government's point of view there is no national reason why the House should take a different view or should decide to hold up this measure or to vote against it.
I should take this opportunity to comment briefly on the two amendments grouped with this one. Subsection (4) would be omitted by amendment No. 5. We should welcome the intention of the subsection as it stands, which is to encourage co-operation between the organisers of processions and the police. The subsection has precedents in four recent local Acts. A chief constable does not need statutory authority to issue guidance to the organisers of processions, so, from the Government's point of view, the subsection is agreeable but not absolutely necessary.
Amendment No. 6 would impose a duty on my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary — not perhaps a very onerous one but one on which I should comment. The new subsection requires the chief constable to forward a copy of his code of practice to the Home Secretary, and my right hon. and learned Friend would be obliged to lay copies of the code before each House of Parliament.
That is neither necessary nor desirable. It is not necessary if its purpose is to publicise the code, since clause 6(4) already obliges the chief constable to issue that. The provision is undesirable because it would give a misleading impression that the code and any amendments to it have been endorsed by the Home Secretary, whereas he would have had no part in the drafting. For those two reasons—that it is unnecessary and that a somewhat confusing, misleading impression would be given—the amendment is undesirable.

Mr. Nellist: Will the Minister of State explain what it is about Nottinghamshire that leads him to lend the Government's support to the maintenance of clause 6? What information does the right hon. Gentleman have that convinces him that it is necessary to have a requirement for notice of processions?

Mr. Hurd: Under our procedures, that is not for the Government to say. It is for the promoters to argue, as they have argued in their statement. There are precedents. From the Government's point of view, there is no objection to the clause.

Ms. Harriet Harman: With the leave of the House, for which I am most grateful, I shall confine my remarks to the amendments that deal with the code of practice. The first amendment says that there should be no code of practice, and the second provides that, after the chief constable has drawn up the code of practice, it shall be brought back to the House.
It is right for us to have a proper discussion of the clause. As far as I am aware, proper consideration has never been given on the Floor of the House to what is an unprecedented clause in constitutional, apart from practical, terms. It originated with the West Midlands County Council Bill, now an Act. There was a great deal of petitioning against a clause in that legislation that would make it a criminal offence not to give notice of processions in the west midlands. There was a great deal of local concern, and petitions were drawn up against the clause. It was a 72-hour notice clause, unlike this clause. The subsection about a code of practice was put into the West Midlands County Council Act in an attempt to mitigate the effect of the criminal offence of failing to give notice and to reassure people who were worried about the effects on the right to demonstrate of this criminal offence of failing to give notice. I support the amendments because, in my opinion, the subsection, far from mitigating the effects of the original clause, makes matters worse.
I want to deal first with the status of the code of practice. If a code of practice is important, it should be a schedule to the Bill and subject to the same consideration as the rest of the Bill. We are accustomed to codes of practice in employment law. Industrial tribunals consider not only employment legislation but codes of practice approved by the Secretary of State under the legislation. What we are not familiar with—and, as far as I am aware, there is no precedent for—is the idea of a code of practice in relation to the criminal law. How will it be used in court? How are the magistrates courts to interpret a breach of the code of practice compared with a breach of the Act itself? There is no precedent. Magistrates will not know what weight to give to it. A code of practice is an unprecedented creature in criminal law. The idea of this creature being introduced in a local Bill is unsatisfactory constitutionally.
We are giving parliamentary authority to the chief constable to write bits of the criminal law, because the chief constable has responsibility to draw up the code of practice. The House has no business to delegate to a chief constable the power to draw up extra bits of the criminal law without any comeback from the House as to whether the bits that he adds to the code of practice are what we would approve. We should remember that we are talking about a code of practice that is issued under a provision that makes something a criminal offence.
The west midlands code of practice, which was drawn up under the West Midlands County Council Act, did not have wide circulation. Most people did not know about it, and they probably still do not know about it. We know that ignorance of the law is no excuse. If one breaks the law, one has to bear the consequences, whether or not one knew of the law. Is it the same here? Will ignorance of the code of practice be no excuse? Even if one has not managed to get a copy of the code of practice, and breaches one of its provisions, is one still transgressing the criminal law?
When I was working for the National Council for Civil Liberties and tried to get a copy for someone in the west midlands who wanted to know what the code of practice said, it was with the utmost difficulty that I managed to find a copy of the code of practice. We tried the police, the local library and local solicitors. The code of practice will be important in the courts, but it is quite inaccessible. That is a bad precedent.
Let us consider what we are asking the chief constable to do. He is to issue the code of practice. The provision


does not say that he should consult the local police authority. It does not say that he should consult the local authority, let alone the Home Office or this House. We are giving the chief constable a power that is completely without local accountability. That is an extremely bad precedent.
We say that the chief constable can put into the code of practice "any matter that he deems to be relevant." It is extraordinary that anyone should say in a provision that could lead to a criminal conviction that the chief constable can draw up a code of practice, off his own bat, without consulting anybody, locally or nationally, in which he can put any matter that he deems to be relevant. It is an entirely subjective test.

Mr. Nellist: Am I right in my understanding that, according to the present proposal in the Nottinghamshire County Council Bill, the code of practice would not have the force of law because it is not a schedule to the legislation, but that it could be treated as such? The only example that I have found was given to me by a senior police officer. It relates to the guidelines for organising juvenile jazz band parades, and it is four pages long. Paragraph 4 of the guidelines says:
You must discuss your proposed route with the Police as they are aware of the current road hazards for that area, so you should make an appointment for this purpose. Unless prior consent is obtained no parade can take place.
Is not that an example of a guideline from the chief
constable that is at variance with existing law? Even if the Bill were enacted in its present form, the clause would include a fine for not notifying the police, although of itself it does not ban the procession from taking place. These guidelines, which are the only example that I can find, actually say that unless prior consent can be obtained,
no parade can take place".
In my opinion, that is wrong.

Ms. Harman: What my hon. Friend says is quite right—in other words, this is an open invitation to chief constables to put in whatever they deem relevant to the way in which a procession should be conducted, whether or not it goes beyond the law. Clearly, there would be a temptation to extend the criminal law and the restrictions on demonstrations. Chief constables would be able to do that, as the clause stands.

Mr. Mikardo: A chief constable may consider it relevant to make it a condition that a trade union shall not carry its banner or that a miners' lodge shall not have its brass band playing in the procession. It would change the whole character of political protest as we have known it in this country for centuries.

Ms. Harman: When I come to my detailed criticisms of the west midlands code of practice, it will be apparent that the chief constable there has done precisely that.
Clause 6(4)(b) says that the code of practice must draw attention to the need
to agree the route with the police.
That is saying that the route is no longer the choice of those who organise or take part in the procession, but that it has to be arranged by agreement with the police. Under the Public Order Act, the police can refuse to allow people to go on a route, or advise against a route, only if they think that the taking of a particular route will cause "serious public disorder". That is right. The police should not be

able to determine which streets demonstrators should go down. Demonstrators know where they want to go, and it is right that the Public Order Act should say that the police should be able to reroute marches only if there is a serious threat of public order. Yet in the clause the chief constable is being told to tell demonstrators that they must agree the route with the police. I am sure that the original drawing up under the West Midlands County Council Act was done very hastily, and so, inadvertently and via the back door, a major restriction is being imposed on the right to demonstrate.
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Nottinghamshire county council has not produced a draft of the code of practice for hon. Members to see. It has not yet asked the chief constable to draw up a specimen draft, which would help us to know what we are talking about and whether we think the chief constable is right. The fact that the council has not produced a draft shows how much outside our control this legislation is. I can only ask hon. Members to consider one code of practice which has been drawn up under an identical section in the West Midlands County Council Act. The code of practice is dated September 1980, but no one looking at it would have any idea whether it is the latest code. A solicitor might have a copy of it in his office and the police might have a copy at the police station. However, because of its peculiar status, no one will know whether it has been superseded.

Mr. Mikardo: Or withdrawn.

Ms. Harman: My hon. Friend is right. I assume that the code of practice that I have for the west midlands is up to date. We do not know how many versions of the code of practice there will be, how often it will be amended, or whether the chief constable will be prepared to amend it following suggestions, say, from the police or local authority. That is not written into the Bill.
As the code of practice for the west midlands is the nearest we have to a code of practice for Nottinghamshire county council, I shall comment on its framework. It begins by stating that it is drawn up under section 38 of the West Midlands County Council Act. Anyone picking it up would think that it was an authoritative legal document and that anyone breaching it would be guilty of a criminal offence. It then mixes up the criminal law in the west midlands with what the chief constable would like to see by way of good practice. Someone who knew the law, had read the section and knew public order law could distinguish between the chief constable's suggestions and the obligations. However, the code of practice is no doubt given to those who notify the police that they intend to march in the west midlands. Such people have no way of being able to distinguish between what they have to do and what is merely optional. Although an expert in public order law could distinguish between them, an ordinary solicitor would be unable to say what was binding under the law and what were simply the chief constable's suggestions.
The code states that it is drawn up under the Act and then sets out the legal requirements. Later, there is a huge list of all the offences which should not be committed when demonstrating. The person reading it would immediately think that he might teeter over the brink when demonstrating and commit one of four criminal offences involving offensive weapons, using abusive behaviour,


inciting racial hatred and so on. The offences are set out in great detail and the person reading it would think immediately that he had to be careful, because otherwise he might commit one of them. He would begin to think that what he was doing was almost unlawful in itself. The code then sets out the information needed from organisers.

Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo: Would those three items give offence to any reasonable person?

Ms. Harman: The hon. Gentleman will understand my point when I come to the things that are not included in the code of practice. It forbids this, that and the other, and is full of prohibitions. I am just giving the House an idea of what is in the code, as it has not been given a copy of the Nottinghamshire code of practice.
The code of practice then mentions the information that organisers must give to the police. It states:
Persons wishing to organise a procession are advised to notify the police either in writing … or by calling at a police station … where … organisers will be asked to meet with senior police officers".
Hon. Members may imagine 20 parents who want to demonstrate about a school crossing having to go through all that palaver and having to meet "senior police officers." They must then give 20 items of information. Anyone reading the code would imagine that the police must be talking about a huge operation—

Mr. Skinner: I wonder where we can obtain a copy of that code of practice. It is generally argued that if a code of practice is not available to all hon. Members, the whole thing should be abandoned until it is made available. I am astounded by what has happened. I hope that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, are aware that the code of practice, telling us exactly what it is all about, is not available to hon. Members. It is an affront to parliamentary democracy that we do not have a code of practice to look at. Perhaps, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will tell us whether it is in order for the debate to continue when the code of practice is not available.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The debate is certainly in order. The necessary documents are before the House.

Ms. Harman: I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) is trying to point out that one of the documents that should be before the House is the code of practice that relates to the Bill. I am not aware of any code of practice or draft being before the House. The sponsors know that some of us are very concerned about the Bill's implications for civil liberty, yet we do not have a copy of the code.

Mr. Nellist: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You said that the necessary documents were before the House. Can you tell me where I can get a copy of the code of practice?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I meant that the necessary documents, as laid down by the rules of order, are before the House. It is, of course, for the sponsors to argue their case and to present any other documents that they think fit.

Mr. Skinner: Further to that point of order. Mr. Deputy Speaker. I think that you will fully appreciate that on several occasions when all the relevant material has not been available, the Chair has deemed it necessary to

suspend all further discussion until it has been placed before us. My hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman) is telling us about something that is in a code of practice, but none of us has the document. It is an affront to the House that we are not in possession of it. Nottinghamshire county council has a cheek to press the legislation when that document has not been made available. To use a legal term, this debate is ultra vires.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I shall decide when the debate is out of order.

Ms. Harman: I am genuinely trying not to take up too much time, and that is why I shall not read out all the items that are requested from the organisers.

Mr. Skinner: We have a right to know.

Ms. Harman: I shall mention just a few items. Hon. Members should bear in mind that the demonstrations might involve only 10 people, or small local marches. Nevertheless, there will be all that bureaucracy, and senior police officers will crunch into action requiring 20 items of information, including the name and address of the organiser. No doubt that will go on to police files. Many people do not mind having their names and addresses placed on police files. Indeed, I am sure that the names and addresses of many people are already held on police files. However, some people will wonder whether their names need to be placed on all the criminal records that the police keep simply because they are organising a perfectly peaceful demonstration. There is a whole load of other information that must be given in writing or at a meeting with senior police officers.
Once someone has decided, despite all the criminal offences listed, to go ahead, he must give that exhaustive list of information. He must wade through the 20 items of information and say, for example, whether or not flags, banners or emblems are to be carried. That is the very point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) made. One must supply information about flags, banners or emblems, and presumably senior police officers can say whether or not one is allowed to carry them.

Mr. Skinner: I distinctly heard some Tory Members laugh at my hon. Friend's suggestion that the name and address of the organiser might be put on criminal files. This is no laughing matter. Not so long ago a young woman in the south of England—

Mr. Nellist: In Sutton Coldfield.

Mr. Skinner: —wrote a letter as a supporter of CND. Subsequently, parts of the national press reported that she had become subject to police investigation as a result of her name going on file and that the Special Branch turned up at her house. Therefore, Tory Members should not regard the placing of names and addresses on file as a laughing matter. It happened in that case, and my hon. Friend makes an important point.

Ms. Harman: All Labour Members are very much in favour of people who engage in perfectly peaceful demonstrations co-operating with the police —and the overwhelming majority of demonstrations are peaceful. However, many people will not like the idea of giving their name and address and these 20 items of information, which include whether flags and banners will be carried and the number of vehicles that will accompany the march.

Mr. Skinner: That is another disturbing aspect of the code of practice. In Nottinghamshire, particularly in Mansfield, demonstrations take place in which, generally speaking, the miners form the bulk of those participating. The chief constable has a damned cheek asking for information so that he can decide whether or not the NUM branches in Nottinghamshire can parade their banners. We know only too well that over the years the miners have demonstrated in a proper and peaceful manner. Indeed, I and some of my hon. Friends have been proud to take part in those demonstrations. Things are coming to a pretty pass when it is suggested that they must now give advance information about pit banners.

Mr. Concannon: I should point out that the Nottinghamshire miners' gala is always held in my constituency. That demonstration is always talked over with the police, the route is agreed, everything goes well and the police escort us through the town. Therefore, there is no problem with the police over the Nottinghamshire miners' gala.

Ms. Harman: To its credit, the NUM is extremely well organised and confident, knows how to deal with the police and is sure of its rights. However, there have been cases where people, who are less well-organised and do not know about demonstrations, have tried to take banners and have been told by the police—quite beyond their powers — that they are not allowed to do so. [HON. MEMBERS: "Which people?"] A CND group had just finished painting its banner and was told that it was not allowed to take it. Other such groups will not realise that they have a choice, and that this is not laid down in law. By inserting such a provision in a code of practice, the whole thing is put up for grabs.
On vehicles accompanying marches, the code of practice states that
vehicles will only be permitted at the front and rear of marches, never in the main body".
I have been on many large demonstrations that have marched a long distance, when it has been excellent to have a band halfway down the demonstration to keep the people at the rear in tune with what is going on. Yet this code of practice lays down, with no consultation, that vehicles will be permitted only at the front and rear of marches. That is a creeping extension of the law.

Mr. Bermingham: My hon. Friend is quoting from the west midlands code of practice, but the House is being asked to approve a clause containing a subsection which refers to a code of practice, of the details and content of which it is utterly unaware. There is no way in which any hon. Member can know what, if anything, will be in that code of conduct. Is not that a complete negation of democracy? In the past, the House has usually known what it is talking about when it has been asked to approve a clause in a Bill.

Ms. Harman: I merely use the West Midlands County Council Act as an example, because we do not have a clue about the code under this Bill. No one can say whether or not the chief constable of Nottinghamshire will introduce a provision such as this, but it is relevant to mention this so that hon. Members have some idea of how such a clause could involve an extension of the law.
Besides all the information that is required, the west midlands code of practice contains guidance to organisers

on the employment of stewards. There is an exhaustive piece on what the stewards should do—that they should wear armbands as well as lapel badges, that there should be one for every 50 people taking part, that they should not become involved in incidents and should immediately refer such incidents to the police. There is a whole series of injunctions.

Mr. Frank Haynes: Having listened carefully to what my hon. Friend has said, I should point out that at a recent two-day miners' conference in Nottinghamshire the Bill was not discussed at all. As my hon. Friend knows, we discussed the Bill not so long ago, and that debate attracted a fair amount of publicity in Nottinghamshire. However, I have received no representations on the Bill. I received one letter from a constituency party in Nottinghamshire, but it had nothing to do with this.
I should have thought that the miners would have raised this subject at their two-day conference. I am convinced that the Nottinghamshire NUM president consults the police on the miners' demonstrations. Bearing in mind that about 300 people attended that conference, many of whom belong to other small groups, I should have thought that an emergency resolution could have been tabled for debate so that they could decide whether they were for or against the Nottinghamshire County Council Bill. I feel that that should be put on record in view of what my hon. Friend has said and the fact that I have received no correspondence objecting to the Bill.

Ms. Harman: I do not know whether the Nottinghamshire NUM, as a union, has any policy on this clause, but I know that the NUM in Kent strongly petitioned against a self same clause in the Kent County Council Bill.
Of course we want to have full co-operation and consultation. That must be encouraged. But it is a contradiction in terms to think that one can force co-operation. When talking about the use of the criminal law, one is no longer talking of ways whereby organisers and police meet to discuss what is mutually beneficial. Instead, one is talking about the chief constable enforcing the criminal law. That is quite different.

Mr. Nellist: My hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) said that he had received no correspondence. Is my hon. Friend aware that I received petitions from 30 or 40 trade union and labour organisations within the Nottinghamshire area which do object to the clause? Therefore, Parliament was petitioned by a large number of working people.

Ms. Harman: I take my hon. Friend's point about the considerable local concern about the Bill.
In the code of practice, the duties of stewards are laid out—

Mr. Skinner: We must try to meet the problem raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes). He mentioned the well-attended two-day conference. I understand that it was a good conference, and I do not doubt his word for a minute. However, I hope that both he and my right hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) agree that the miners will not necessarily be worked up, because at the end of the day they will do what they must do. I remember the famous occasion in 1972 when the Labour party won a magnificent victory and


put a Labour Prime Minister in No. 10. A demonstration was organised the following morning at 10 am in Mansfield and another was subsequently organised in Chesterfield.
The important point is that the chief constable knows that the miners in Nottinghamshire are strong. He will be careful not to take them on. But other organisations are not as strong as the miners; they do not have the same clout. We are concerned about them. I well understand that the miners did not table an emergency resolution about the Bill, but the various trades councils have made their objections known.

Ms. Harman: Under the duties of stewards, the code of practice states:
The police have a duty to avoid breaches of the peace where possible and on occasions have to direct a procession by another route.
The only ground on which the police are entitled to redirect a march is if they fear that a particular route will cause "serious public disorder", not a "breach of the peace." So the police have reduced the hurdle over which they must jump before they can alter a route.
The code of practice continues:
The police will inform the organiser(s) in writing confirming the arrangements and the route to be followed subject to the proviso that the route may be varied by police either before or during the event".
The chief constable is not entitled to vary the route before or during the event. He is entitled to vary the route chosen by the organisers only if he fears "serious public disorder"—and he must go through certain procedures before he is entitled to do that. That is part of the criminal law. Yet something quite different has been drawn up by a chief constable. It is a serious constitutional point.
It is instructive to note what the code of practice does not state. For example, it does not say, "You, the organiser of a procession, have a perfect right to demonstrate peacefully in a democracy." There is nothing encouraging or reassuring anywhere in the code of practice. It is full of inhibitions and prohibitions. It does not convey the idea that most demonstrations are entirely peaceful. It sounds as though one is organising a military operation. That will put off the inexperienced person organising a demonstration for the first time. It also transgresses the principle that the organisers decide the route. It does not anywhere suggest that the police will do all they can to help, support and encourage an exercise by citizens of their rights in a democracy.
The best course would be to knock out the clause altogether. The second best course would be to knock out the code of practice, which gives the chief constable the opportunity that I have mentioned. The third best course would be to accept amendment No. 6 which, although it puts forward the least desirable option, is better than what is offered in the Bill as it stands. If we accept amendment No. 6, at least we would have in the Library a copy of a code of practice so that we could at least study it. If the Minister does not approve of a code of practice, there is not much that he can do about it, but at least the House will know what it contains.
Laying a copy of the code of practice before the House does not deal with the constitutional status point; it does not explain how the criminal courts should interpret the code of practice; it does not deal with the lack of

accountability at local level; it does not deal with the problem of accessibility to the code; and it does not deal with the House abdicating its responsibility by allowing chief constables to make criminal law.
We are dealing not with a requirement to give notice, but with a criminal offence—no matter how peaceful a demonstration or whether it is spontaneous. We have no statutory right to march, and there is already over-policing of peaceful marches. The code of practice will be seen as extending the area in which one has to apply to the police for permission to hold a march, to follow a particular route, to display flags or banners or to use vehicles. The House has no business to delegate such authority to chief constables, whether in Nottinghamshire or anywhere else. The matter constitutionally lies with us. We should not limit the freedom to demonstrate.

Mr. Concannon: I shall be brief because I do not intend to argue the merits of the Bill, or even the clause under discussion. I do not change my mind between Monday and Wednesday in one week. If we are told on a Monday that local authorities know what is best for them and their areas, the selfsame thing must apply on a Wednesday, even though I might not personally agree with what those authorities intend to do.
After the various comments made in our previous debate on the matter, I thought that there would be uproar in Nottinghamshire against the Bill. I want it firmly to be placed on record that I have not received one objection to the Bill—not a letter or a phone call.

Mr. Skinner: This is the second time that my right hon. Friend has made the point about local people knowing best. On the other occasions when my hon. Friends have fought similar measures line by line and clause by clause — especially during the period of the Labour Government from 1974 to 1979—did my right hon. Friend join me, the Chief Whip, and our hon. Friends in marching into the Lobbies to stop the local authorities who apparently knew best? If he casts back his mind to those occasions, he will remember that there was total Labour support for refusing similar clauses.

Mr. Concannon: I cannot remember my views on every occasion. I am simply saying that although I am not entirely in agreement with what is intended by the Bill, I shall stand up and fight for the right of that council to do what it thinks is best. It must be free to put forward its views.
My hon. Friends have said that the chief constable will be able to do this and that, and that he has Labour councillors in his pocket. I must tell my hon. Friends that the chairman of the police committee in Nottinghamshire is Labour, as is the vice-chairman, and that the committee is firmly under Labour control.

Ms. Harman: I did not say that the chief constable had the Labour-controlled council or police authority in his pocket. That does not even matter, because Parliament would be delegating to the chief constable powers above and beyond those of the local authority and the police authority.

Mr. Concannon: I do not seek to argue with my hon. Friend, but the matter was put in such crude terms earlier. The elected Labour councillors form the vast majority on the county council and I back them to the hilt. Some of


them have probably been in the Labour party for longer than some of their critics have been alive. It is extraordinary that elected councillors should be taken to task in that way. If there is uproar in Nottinghamshire about the Bill or the clause, I have certainly not heard of it. I have not had one letter, phone call or other complaint from any organisation in Mansfield or in Nottinghamshire generally.

Ms. Harman: I am not criticising the Labour group in Nottinghamshire. I am simply exercising my right when a measure of this kind is before the House to express a fundamental objection to a proposal that is more than a local issue because it affects the criminal law. I am not criticising the Labour councillors. I am simply saying that on this issue I think that they are wrong.

Mr. Concannon: My hon. Friend is perfectly entitled to take the view that the councillors are wrong. Unfortunately, the elected county councillors of Nottinghamshire believe that they are right. It is not a matter of whether I think that they are right. As I have said, the Labour group of councillors went back four times to discuss this and four times reached the same conclusion. On one of those occasions, they discussed the matter again because I had specifically asked them to do so, but their answer was still the same. Some of those Labour councillors are as strongly principled in their minds as some of my hon. Friends. There is a clash of principle. It is no longer a matter of what is in the clause but of the county council's entitlement to stick up for its right to make decisions for its area. My hon. Friend may think that the councillors are wrong, but they believe that they are right. Whether they are right or wrong, I am here to defend their right to do as they are doing.

Mr. Brandon-Bravo: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put:—

Question put, That the Question be now put:—

The House divided: Ayes 100, Noes 34.

Division No. 159]
[8.32 pm


AYES


Alexander, Richard
Hardy, Peter


Aspinwall, Jack
Hargreaves, Kenneth


Atkinson, David (B'm'th E)
Harvey, Robert


Baldry, Anthony
Hawkins, C. (High Peak)


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'fotk)


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Haynes, Frank


Bottomley, Peter
Heathcoat-Amory, David


Brandon-Bravo, Martin
Hirst, Michael


Brown, M. (Brigg &amp; Cl'thpes)
Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)


Burt, Alistair
Hooson, Tom


Butterfill, John
Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)


Carlisle, John (N Luton)
Howell, Ralph (N Norfolk)


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Hunt, David (Wirral)


Chapman, Sydney
Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas


Chope, Christopher
Key, Robert


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
King, Roger (B'ham N'field)


Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.
King, Rt Hon Tom


Coombs, Simon
Knox, David


Cope, John
Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)


Currie, Mrs Edwina
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Lightbown, David


Fallon, Michael
Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)


Farr, John
Lyell, Nicholas


Fookes, Miss Janet
Macfarlane, Neil


Forman, Nigel
MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)


Fox, Marcus
MacKay, John (Argyll &amp; Bute)


Franks, Cecil
Madel, David


Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)
Major, John


Garel-Jones, Tristan
Marlow, Antony


Griffiths, E. (B'y St Edm'ds)
Mather, Carol


Grist, Ian
Meyer, Sir Anthony





Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)
Spence, John


Moynihan, Hon C.
Spencer, D.


Murphy, Christopher
Stern, Michael


Neale, Gerrard
Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)


Neubert, Michael
Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)


Nicholls, Patrick
Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)


Onslow, Cranley
Stradling Thomas, J.


Osborn, Sir John
Thompson, Donald (Calder V)


Page, John (Harrow W)
Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)


Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth
Thurnham, Peter


Raffan, Keith
van Straubenzee, Sir W.


Rhodes James, Robert
Wakeham, Rt Hon John


Rifkind, Malcolm
Waller, Gary


Robinson, Mark (N'port W)
Wardle, C. (Bexhill)


Rowe, Andrew
Wiggin, Jerry


Sackville, Hon Thomas
Wilkinson, John


Shersby, Michael
Wood, Timothy


Skeet, T. H. H.



Soames, Hon Nicholas
Tellers for the Ayes:


Speed, Keith
Mr. Richard Ottaway and


Speller, Tony
Mr. Michael Knowles.




NOES


Ashdown, Paddy
Lamond, James


Beith, A. J.
Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)


Bermingham, Gerald
Madden, Max


Bruce, Malcolm
Mikardo, Ian


Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd &amp; M)
Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)


Canavan, Dennis
Nellist, David


Clark, Dr David (S Shields)
Pike, Peter


Cohen, Harry
Richardson, Ms Jo


Corbyn, Jeremy
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Dalyell, Tam
Skinner, Dennis


Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)
Smith, C.(Isl'ton S &amp; F'bury)


Dixon, Donald
Spearing, Nigel


Dobson, Frank
Wainwright, R.


Eadie, Alex
Wareing, Robert


Golding, John
Woodall, Alec


Hamilton, James (M'well N)



Harman, Ms Harriet
Tellers for the Noes:


Howells, Geraint
Mr. Stan Thorne and


Jones, Barry (Alyn &amp; Deeside)
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 38, Noes 98.

Division No. 160]
[8.43 pm


AYES


Anderson, Donald
Harman, Ms Harriet


Ashdown, Paddy
Howells, Geraint


Beith, A. J.
Jones, Barry (Alyn &amp; Deeside)


Bennett, A. (Dent'n &amp; Red'sh)
Lamond, James


Bermingham, Gerald
Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)


Bruce, Malcolm
McDonald, Dr Oonagh


Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd &amp; M)
McNamara, Kevin


Canavan, Dennis
Madden, Max


Clark, Dr David (S Shields)
Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)


Cohen, Harry
Nellist, David


Corbyn, Jeremy
Pike, Peter


Dalyell, Tam
Richardson, Ms Jo


Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)
Skinner, Dennis


Dixon, Donald
Smith, C.(Isl'ton S &amp; F'bury)


Dobson, Frank
Spearing, Nigel


Eadie, Alex
Wainwright, R.


Evans, John (St. Helens N)
Wareing, Robert


Golding, John



Gourlay, Harry
Tellers for the Ayes:


Hamilton, James (M'well N)
Mr. Ian Mikardo and


Hardy, Peter
Mr. Stan Thorne.




NOES


Alexander, Richard
Boscawen, Hon Robert


Aspinwall, Jack
Bottomley, Peter


Atkinson, David (B'm'th E)
Brandon-Bravo, Martin


Baldry, Anthony
Brown, M. (Brigg &amp; Cl'thpes)


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Burt, Alistair






Butterfill, John
Major, John


Carlisle, John (N Luton)
Mather, Carol


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Meyer, Sir Anthony


Chapman, Sydney
Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)


Chope, Christopher
Moynihan, Hon C.


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Murphy, Christopher


Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.
Neale, Gerrard


Coombs, Simon
Neubert, Michael


Cope, John
Newton, Tony


Currie, Mrs Edwina
Nicholls, Patrick


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Onslow, Cranley


Fallon, Michael
Osborn, Sir John


Farr, John
Page, John (Harrow W)


Fookes, Miss Janet
Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth


Forman, Nigel
Raffan, Keith


Franks, Cecil
Rhodes James, Robert


Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)
Rifkind, Malcolm


Garel-Jones, Tristan
Robinson, Mark (N'port W)


Griffiths, E. (B'y St Edm'ds)
Rowe, Andrew


Grist, Ian
Sackville, Hon Thomas


Hargreaves, Kenneth
Shersby, Michael


Harvey, Robert
Skeet, T. H. H.


Hawkins, C. (High Peak)
Soames, Hon Nicholas


Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)
Speed, Keith


Haynes, Frank
Speller, Tony


Heathcoat-Amory, David
Spence, John


Hirst, Michael
Spencer, D.


Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)
Stern, Michael


Hooson, Tom
Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)


Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)
Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)


Howell, Ralph (N Norfolk)
Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)


Hunt, David (Wirral)
Stradling Thomas, J.


Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas
Thompson, Donald (Calder V)


Key, Robert
Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)


King, Roger (B'ham N'field)
Thurnham, Peter


King, Rt Hon Tom
van Straubenzee, Sir W.


Knox, David
Wakeham, Rt Hon John


Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)
Waller, Gary


Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Wardle, C. (Bexhill)


Lightbown, David
Wiggin, Jerry


Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)
Wilkinson, John


Lyell, Nicholas
Wood, Timothy


Macfarlane, Neil



MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)
Tellers for the Noes:


MacKay, John (Argyll &amp; Bute)
Mr. Richard Ottaway and


Madel, David
Mr. Michael Knowles.

Question accordingly negatived.

Amendment proposed: No. 5, in page 7, line 26, leave out subsection(4).—[Mr. Andrew F. Bennett.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 36, Noes 75.

Division No. 161]
[8.56 pm


AYES


Ashdown, Paddy
Jones, Barry (Alyn &amp; Deeside)


Beith, A. J.
Lamond, James


Bennett, A. (Dent'n &amp; Red'sh)
Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)


Bruce, Malcolm
McDonald, Dr Oonagh


Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd &amp; M)
McNamara, Kevin


Canavan, Dennis
Madden, Max


Clark, Dr David (S Shields)
Mikardo, Ian


Cohen, Harry
Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)


Corbyn, Jeremy
Nellist, David


Dalyell, Tam
Pike, Peter


Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Dixon, Donald
Skinner, Dennis


Dobson, Frank
Smith, C.(Isl'ton S &amp; F'bury)


Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.
Thorne, Stan (Preston)


Eadie, Alex
Wainwright, R.


Evans, John (St. Helens N)
Wareing, Robert


Golding, John



Hardy, Peter
Tellers for the Ayes:


Harman, Ms Harriet
Ms. Jo Richardson and


Howells, Geraint
Mr. Gerald Bermingham.





NOES


Alexander, Richard
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)


Aspinwall, Jack
Lightbown, David


Atkinson, David (B'm'th E)
Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Lyell, Nicholas


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Macfarlane, Neil


Bottomley, Peter
MacKay, John (Argyll &amp; Bute)


Brandon-Bravo, Martin
Major, John


Burt, Alistair
Meyer, Sir Anthony


Butterfill, John
Murphy, Christopher


Carlisle, John (N Luton)
Neubert, Michael


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Newton, Tony


Chapman, Sydney
Nicholls, Patrick


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Onslow, Cranley


Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.
Osborn, Sir John


Coombs, Simon
Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth


Cope, John
Raffan, Keith


Currie, Mrs Edwina
Rifkind, Malcolm


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Robinson, Mark (N'port W)


Farr, John
Rowe, Andrew


Fookes, Miss Janet
Shersby, Michael


Forman, Nigel
Skeet, T. H. H.


Franks, Cecil
Soames, Hon Nicholas


Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)
Speed, Keith


Garel-Jones, Tristan
Spence, John


Griffiths, E. (B'y St Edm'ds)
Spencer, D.


Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)
Stern, Michael


Hargreaves, Kenneth
Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)


Harvey, Robert
Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)


Hawkins, C. (High Peak)
Stradling Thomas, J.


Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)
Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)


Haynes, Frank
Thurnham, Peter


Heathcoat-Amory, David
Wakeham, Rt Hon John


Hirst, Michael
Wardle, C. (Bexhill)


Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)
Wiggin, Jerry


Hooson, Tom
Wilkinson, John


Howell, Ralph (N Norfolk)
Wood, Timothy


Hunt, David (Wirral)



Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas
Tellers for the Noes:


King, Roger (B'ham N'field)
Mr. Richard Ottaway and


King, Rt Hon Tom
Mr. Michael Knowles.


Knox, David

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 7

TOUTING, HAWKING, PHOTOGRAPHING, ETC.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: I beg to move amendment No. 2, in page 8, leave out lines 29 and 30.
I am a little puzzled, because the promoters sent round a carefully prepared statement about their attitude to the Bill, and made it clear that they would accept amendment No. 5.

Mr. Brandon-Bravo: We would not wish to press this point, under the guidance of the promoters. We will accept the amendment of the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett).

Mr. Bennett: I find that a little puzzling because I was about to query the fact that the promoters had made it clear —

Mr. John Golding: Is my hon. Friend aware that although the promoters have accepted the amendment there are those of us who will fight hard against it? My hon. Friend will have to deploy strong arguments to persuade me that it is a worthy amendment.

Mr. Bennett: I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. What is the promoters' attitude to this, because they sent a letter telling us that they were prepared to


accept amendment No. 5, but when it comes to it, they insist on voting it down? I was asking why they had now sent a letter saying that they did not want to oppose amendment No. 2. That seems odd. They have always claimed that this is an extremely important local Bill and that they wanted the powers provided in it. Having made a great deal of fuss about the clause that deals with processions, they seem to feel that the paragraph dealing with photographs is not all that important. If it is not, why did they take the trouble to put it in the Bill in the first place? Why did they insist on putting it through all its stages? Why is it still in the Bill?
Had I not tabled this amendment, the paragraph would have remained in the Bill. It seems odd and illogical for the promoters to feel that one clause is important and yet not seem to think that this paragraph is all that important. We should work out what it does. As I understand it, the promoters are saying that no individual may stand in the street and take photographs of passers-by and then attempt to sell photographs to them. I can remember going to seaside resorts on many occasions—

Mr. Golding: Does my hon. Friend realise that the provision goes much further than that? The promoters are not just talking about people taking photographs, but also purporting to take them. I shall be supporting that provision strongly when my hon. Friend has sat down.

Mr. Bennett: I was trying to develop the argument. I remember going to many seaside resorts where it was fairly common to be encouraged to sit for a photograph with a monkey or some other artefact that the photographer had. Many hon. Members will be aware of the attractions of going to the seaside and being asked to stick one's head through a cut-out figure—

Mr. Bermingham: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the greatest nuisances at the seaside, or anywhere else, it to have what might be called freelance photographers sticking cameras in one's face to take photographs which they may or may not supply later? Does he further agree that there have been many prosecutions for obtaining by deception in pursuance of that type of activity? Does my hon. Friend further agree that although the promoters are prepared to accept the amendment, many of us feel that this is a nuisance and a mischief which should be controlled and regulated in the way suggested in the Bill?

Mr. Bennett: I was trying to describe what tends to happen. It may well be that Nottingham does not believe that it has many scenic attractions.

Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend should be aware of the Goose Fair at Nottingham, which has been held for centuries. It is just the sort of place at which photographers would be found wanting to take pictures, or purporting to take pictures—I am not quite sure what the latter phrase means. There would be hundreds of such people at the Goose Fair and there might be some policemen among them also wishing to take photographs.

Mr. Bennett: I am not quite sure what happens at the Goose Fair, but it would seem that there are all sorts of possibilities. It may be that the council in Nottingham does not believe that such people should be present, but it is reasonable to expect the council to set out its reasons.

Mr. Golding: If my hon. Friend has come here tonight not knowing what happens at the Goose Fair, why did he bother to come?

Mr. Bennett: I assure my hon. Friend that I had some hopes that he might be here and in due course enlighten me about the Goose Fair. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) does not know about it either.

Mr. Golding: My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover would not be here if he did not.

Mr. Skinner: This is a very necessary part of the debate. As has already been said, there are always many photographers hanging around, sticking their cameras in front of people's noses, wanting to take photographs, and taking people's names and addresses. The Goose Fair has been held for centuries. It is a massive fair, with all the usual attractions that one finds on the pleasure beach at Blackpool. The fair is held on the outskirts of Nottingham. People travel to it from far and wide. Some of them come from counties which may or may not have legislation such as that set out in clause 6. I appreciate that we cannot debate that now because we have already dealt with it. I do not know where the name "Goose Fair" comes from—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. Interventions should be brief. I cannot see anything in the Bill about Nottingham Goose Fair. Will the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) please relate his remarks to taking photographs or purporting to take them?

Mr. Skinner: One would assume that Nottingham, being an inland county, with no seaside resorts, would not be prone to having people hanging around, pushing cameras into people's faces and wanting to take photographs. My point is that because of the tradition that has existed in Nottingham city—not the county—for many years, there is a kind of replica of what takes place at the pleasure beach at Blackpool. The fair continues for several days, and it is in that kind of environment that photographs are taken. That is probably the cause of the relevant set of words being included in the clause.

Mr. Golding: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I draw your attention to the fact that the provision relates to "subsection (1)(a) above"? That subsection includes ground on which the Goose Fair can be held. In discussing the Goose Fair, one would need to know whether it can be held on
a public off-street car park, recreation ground, garden or other park, pleasure ground or open space under the management control of a local authority".

Mr. Deputy Speaker: One should never overlook the hon. Gentleman's ingenuity, but we must get back to the amendment under discussion.

Mr. Bennett: I was trying to establish the case that at seaside resorts—and, as has now been made clear to me, in certain circumstances in Nottingham—there is the possibility of people taking advantage of a festive occasion in order to take photographs of people in the street.

Mr. Stan Thorne: We are in danger of contradicting ourselves. One of the aspects of our case against the inclusion of clause 6 was that it was likely to be an interference with individual liberty, and with the


rights of people in certain circumstances, with which I am sure that you are now familiar, Mr. Deputy Speaker, quickly to express themselves about problems that have arisen. The Bill appears to be taking that right away from them.
I am concerned about the human rights of those who are photographers and those who purport to be photographers, in certain circumstances where they are seeking to ply their trade or business. I am alarmed that the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo), who seems to be some sort of spokesman on the Bill, agrees to accept the amendment but does not say anything about the second part of the clause that he is prepared to see amended, which goes on to deal with other people whose liberties may be affected by it. I should like my hon. Friend to address himself to that aspect of his amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are getting excessively long interventions. Hon. Members should either keep their interventions brief or should seek to catch my eye if they want to speak on this matter.

Mr. Bennett: Individuals might use a camera to make a few pence taking photographs of people who are going, perhaps, to the Goose Fair, or to other occasions in Nottingham. I do not object to them plying their trade in the streets, and the Bill does not stop that. It places upon the individual the duty of applying for a licence. There is no objection if an individual is making most of his livelihood by taking photographs in the street and offering to sell the photographs. Such an individual would have no problem when applying for a licence.
If that is the promoters' case I should have some sympathy with their original intention, but I am puzzled as to why this is something that has come in a local Act rather than in national legislation. If it is legally necessary to control this business in Nottingham, why is it not necessary in most other places? It may be that it is only necessary in places with seaside resorts or Goose Fairs, but I suspect that most localities have a claim to a festival or an occasion that would attract people who try to take photographs.
I am sure that we are all conscious that this often happens late in the evening, when someone is persuaded to have their photograph taken and to part with about £5. They are given a ticket to claim their photographs. Sometimes they do not take the ticket away because there is some sleight of hand. On other occasions, although they take the ticket away, when they present it at the address on the ticket, no photographs are forthcoming. From time to time, we hear complaints about a small number of unscrupulous photographers doing such things.

Mr. Golding: When my hon. Friend says "late in the evening" is that a euphemism for what one calls after dinner or after taking refreshment? Is my hon. Friend saying that this covers people who are tiddly and therefore part with their money more easily? If so, will he please speak with more northern bluntness so that we can follow him?

Mr. Bennett: I thank my hon. Friend. Yes, to put it bluntly, some people are persuaded to part with £5 when they are drunk. On certain occasions, they might not want the photographs, but on other occasions they have been taken for a ride by the photographer.
That is one side of the argument, and it is a legitimate argument, why the promoters want to issue a licence in certain cases with the name and the address of the individual carrying out the trade so that someone who feels that they have been diddled in this way can make representations based on trading standards, or something else, and get redress. If there were evidence of such malpractices in Nottingham, that would be a legitimate reason for including the clause in the Bill.
However, we must look at the drafting of the clause. It does not refer only to people touting for trade in the way that I have described. I should like to hear from the promoters or from hon. Members who have had the chance to study the Bill more closely than I have what will happen if someone wishes to take photographs to produce calendars or picture postcards of Nottingham.
Subsection (8) includes an exemption for
the taking of a photograph for the purpose of making it available for publication in a newspaper or periodical if the photographer is employed as such by or on behalf of the owner or publisher of a newspaper or periodical or carries on a business which consists in, or includes, selling or supplying photographs for such publication".
A person taking photographs for a daily newspaper or the local paper in Nottingham will not have to bother about registration, but a person taking photographs for a publication other than a newspaper or periodical will have to get permission. However, there are many amateur photographers who do not normally take pictures to sell either to the subject of the photograph or to newspapers, but who, if they take photographs of an accident, a fire or a demonstration, may attempt to sell them to the papers. Would such a photographer need a licence?

Mr. Golding: Will my hon. Friend address himself to the exemption in subsection (8)(c)? What will happen if the owner of the newspaper wants to take a photograph? Would he be prohibited? The subsection refers only to those employed by the owner.

Mr. Bennett: That raises interesting possibilities, but perhaps my hon. Friend can develop that point if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Nellist: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Nottingham Evening Post is part of the T. Bailey Forman group, which changed its name to TBF to get round the action of the National Union of Journalists in defending its members' jobs? In the circumstances outlined by our hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding), if the owner, who sacked NUJ members for demonstrating for trade union rights, took photographs, he would be liable under the clause, whereas his employees would not.

Mr. Bennett: That would be an interesting development. I shall be happy to return to that later.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not do that and that he will stick to the amendment.

Mr. Bennett: I thought that the matter was relevant to the amendment. I seek to persuade the House that we should remove the paragraph in subsection (2)(b):
photographs, or purports to photograph, any person by way of trade or business; or
On reflection, perhaps I should have tabled a consequential amendment to remove subsection (8)(c)


because that will have no standing if my amendment is accepted. No doubt the promoters would wish to table a third amendment to take out the clause.
9.15 pm
I wish to deal with the principal question whether it is right to license photographers who wish to take pictures in the street and, if so, whether this is done in such a way as to catch in the net only those people who do it specifically on pleasurable occasions to try to make money out of individuals, or whether the clause is drawn in such a way that it includes those people who take occasional pictures and supply them for profit or gain to the manufacturers of picture postcards, people who display them in their shop windows for sale, put them in for competition or set out to make money in any other way.
Many semi-amateur photographers ply fairly regularly for trade. A good example that annoys the professional photographer is wedding photographs. Individuals who work at a job for most of the week turn up on a Saturday afternoon sometimes to take pictures that they display at a reception in the hope of getting orders. The clause must be examined closely, because it applies to certain areas only. If an individual were taking wedding photographs within the church or church grounds, I presume that the provision would not apply. However, if, as so often happens, the individual crosses the road to the recreation ground, or stays on the grass verge, which may well make a more attractive site with the church slightly more distant, he will be covered by the clause.
In moving the amendment, my aim was to have it established by the promoters whether the provision was necessary, and one assumes that, having pressed it through all its Committee stages, they feel it is necessary, notwithstanding the letter that has been circulated at this late stage to the House. If the promoters feel that it is necessary, I wish to know whether they are satisfied that, by definition, it covers only the first group of people I described, or whether it covers other groups of people whom I am sure most hon. Members would consider should not have to go through the procedure of submission for a licence.

Mr. Skinner: Could I give my hon. Friend an example? The phrase that my hon. Friend wishes to replace is more dangerous than it might seem at first glance. The Nottinghamshire miners' rally is held in Bury hill park, a beautiful place. Let us suppose it were argued that photographs were being taken for a memorial edition for the Nottinghamshire miners at some future date. The demonstration sets off from Chesterfield road right up to Bury hill. Let us suppose also that people were taking photographs inside, because this is one of the greatest demonstrations, and it is free, so that any member of the public can attend. If the Nottinghamshire NUM or someone acting on its behalf decided to do a first-class job of taking photographs at the demonstration, that could be regarded as plying for trade or business and be subject to a fine of up to £200, which is just about equal to the cost of the average prosecution under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. That is an unfortunate effect of the amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Interventions must be brief.

Mr. Bennett: I should appreciate brief interventions. I should prefer, indeed, to develop my arguments further.
I appreciate the problem. It is another illustration of the difficulty about who has to apply for a licence to take pictures. How is the individual to know that he roust apply? In most parts of the country there is no such provision in force. He assumes that he can take pictures and submit them to a journal or a postcard manufacturer in the hope that he will be paid, and he commits no offence. In future, if he does it in Nottingham he will be subject to a fine.

Mr. Golding: Is not the answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) that such a clause will encourage street artists and painters who, to a great extent, have been driven out of business by photographers? The NUM could employ painters, as it did in the old tradition, to paint pictures of its rally.

Mr. Bennett: I do not want to be drawn too far into the traditions of the miners in this area. It is not an area about which I have a great deal of knowledge. However, I should much prefer to see painted banners than the employment of photographers.

Mr. Mikardo: There is another aspect about which the subsection is unclear. I may add that I am in favour of the subsection and against the amendment. The subsection does not deal with films. I should have thought that if the Nottinghamshire miners wanted a record of their event, they would be more likely to make a film of it. Apparently a photographer only gets it in the neck if he takes still photographs. He is all right if he takes a moving picture. I refer hon. Members to the exemptions in subsection (8). We see there a specific reference to
owner or publisher of a newspaper or periodical…supplying photographs for such publication".
A photographer could take a film and supply it to a cinema without being caught by the clause. If he took a still picture, he would be. Why have not the promoters dealt with films in the same way as they have photographs?

Mr. Bennett: My hon. Friend tempts me to discuss what is and what is not a photograph. Although obviously he feels there is a clear distinction between a moving cinema picture and a still photograph, I suggest that they are both put on film. However, my hon. Friend has not drawn any distinction between film and video. Perhaps we ought not at this stage—and certainly not in my speech—go too far down that road.

Mr. Nellist: Perhaps my hon. Friend can help me. Is it not true that a moving film is created by the movement of 25 still photographs per second? They give the impression of movement only when they are shown at 25 frames a second. In that sense, moving film and still photographs are the same.

Mr. Skinner: He knows everything.

Mr. Bennett: I thank my hon. Friend for that useful piece of information. I accept his main thesis. However I am not sure whether it is 25 pictures a second. It may be that my hon. Friend has in mind slow motion rather than normal speed. That, again, is an alleyway down which had better not stray.

Mr. Golding: Does my hon. Friend appreciate that there is a difference between my hon. Friend the Member


for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) and the Treasury Bench about whether it is 25 or 35 frames per second. Perhaps he can enlighten me about which it is.

Mr. Bennett: I am afraid that I cannot enlighten my hon. Friend. I realise that I am a great disappointment to him. He came here for enlightment, but I cannot give him an authoritative reply.

Mr. James Lamond: It is an ingenious argument to try to prove that a moving film is a series of still photographs. What if the Nottinghamshire miners were making a video of the occasion? That is much more likely because they are extremely up to date with their equipment. As far as I know, there is no film involved in that process at all.

Mr. Bennett: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He will be aware that at quite a few conferences and other similar occasions individuals have now taken the touting for photographs a stage further. They make a video recording or a tape recording of the proceedings, and at the end they offer copies for sale. It has obvious attractions. I am sure that one or two of my hon. Friends will have seen that process at conferences they have attended.

Mr. Golding: Does my hon. Friend know that whenever my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) or I have appeared in a film, any offer of payment has been for its suppression?

Mr. Bennett: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. If one is persuaded to part with money for a photograph after one has seen it, rather than in advance, one can see what one is getting for one's money. If one is persuaded to part with money for a cassette, which purports to have a video on it—or, for that matter, a tape recording—there is no way to check the quality when one buys it. One has to take it away to check it.
Before any more of my hon. Friends interrupt me, I want to come back to the argument about a gala or demonstration on behalf of the miners. The argument involves the way in which the police and, on other occasions, other groups often appear to take pictures at demonstrations — whether by way of their trade or business, I do not know. When my hon. Friends and I have raised this matter in the past, we have often been told that the police are doing it as a training exercise. Indeed, it is often implied that there were no films in their cameras, although it is difficult to convince demonstrators of that. They want to know why the films were being taken and what they will be used for. No doubt, it would be easy for the police to get a licence. But how does an individual get to see the licence and know whether the person taking the picture is licensed?
This is a difficult area, and not one that should be dealt with in a local Bill. The matter should be dealt with nationally. Taking certain photographs should be regulated by national legislation rather than by clauses in local Bills which purport to deal with local circumstances, but which in fact cover national circumstances.
One of my constant complaints against this and other county council Bills is that they give no evidence of the local problem. A common clause is put into such Bills. If it is a common clause, it should surely be introduced by

the Government in a miscellaneous provisions Bill. That would be the logical way for the Government to proceed. Instead, we have all these local clauses and the promoters, in their written submissions tell us that they could not care less whether this provision is in or out. That is not the way to draw up legislation. It is not right for the promoters to tell us in the written submissions that they do not care about the clause one way or the other.
I hope that the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo) will not just say that he is prepared to accept my amendment. I hope that he will tell us why he has changed his mind and why, until last week, it was essential to include this provision but today he has suddenly decided that circumstances have changed in Nottingham and that it can now be taken out. I hope that he will tell us how he will protect the public from people who tout for pictures, make money out of them and may or may not supply the photographs at the end, and how he will protect the genuine semi-amateur photographer who wants to take pictures from which he may get a small income. In the light of what the promoter may say, I shall decide whether to press the matter to a vote.

Mr. Golding: I am disappointed by the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett).

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have to put the Question. The Question is, That the amendment be made.

Mr. Golding: Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am glad that you have put the Question in that way, because it gives me the opportunity to say again how disappointed I was by the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish. I was bitterly disappointed to hear what the promoter said. Indeed, I go further.

Mr. Brandon-Bravo: Last time this matter was debated on 19 January, the hon. Members for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) and for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) said that it was not their wish that the Bill should fail. Therefore, I was endeavouring to facilitate things, no more than that.

Mr. Golding: If the hon. Gentleman had said that clause 6 was to be removed, he would have had this Bill. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will remove the rest of the Bill. We should be interested to know whether he has decided that, in order to facilitate the Bill's passage, he will accept any amendment to delete clause 8.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We should dispose of lines 29 and 30 of clause 7 before moving on to any other clauses.

Mr. Golding: I would have been bitterly disappointed if the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo) had leapt to his feet to withdraw all the clauses. I would not then have been able to present the arguments about the clause. If subsection (2)(b)(i) is deleted, subsection (8)(c) should also be deleted. The prohibition that applies to taking photographs, or purporting to take photographs, should be applied to all. It is entirely unreasonable that the sponsors should say that no one can take photographs or purport to do so unless he is employed as a photographer by a newspaper proprietor or someone in that business.

Mr. Nellist: As my hon. Friend holds such strong views about the clause, can he explain what the phrase "purports to photograph" means?

Mr. Golding: I can explain what that means. When there are two Labour Members and one Conservative Member the photographer comes along and says, "I'll take a group photograph first." That is what I often call purporting to take a photograph. If the newspaper's proprietor is a Conservative, the photographer will say that he wants a photograph of the Conservative candidate with Miss World, on their own, in a corner. That is what I call taking a photograph. It is simple. My hon. Friend cannot be very experienced in the ways of local newspapers and photographers if he does not know the difference between the two.
Many is the time that I have posed for photographers only to find that they are purporting to photograph. When I toured the country as a Minister, my advice to Labour candidates was always that they should stand in the middle. If they do not stand in the middle, they will be purportedly photographed. They will be cut off. If there is a candidate at the end of a row he will be cut off. However, if he is in the middle, the photographer cannot cut him off. One has to learn the distinction between being photographed and being purportedly photographed. I have learned it the hard way.
In a sense, the clause divides on the basis not of class, religion, political philosophy or sex, but of beauty. The clause divides the ugly from the beautiful. Those who are beautiful may not object to being photographed.
I do not claim to be in that category, and I am against photographers who as a race always manage to take me speaking with my mouth open. That is the only photograph that ever appears. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) and I do not have many things in common, but the one thing that we have in common is that we are plagued and misrepresented by photographers. Admittedly, we have had a rough deal from nature, but we have had a rougher, harder deal from photographers, which has added to that disability.

Mr. Skinner: I fully understand the point that my hon. Friend makes. On one occasion I attended a demonstration outside No. 10 Downing street, when the Brazilian president was on a visit, and the police were taking photographs all the time. I asked, "Don't you have enough photographs of me without taking any more?" I do not know whether that photographer was in trade or business, or whether he was selling the photographs, but I suspect that he was putting them on file. I cannot understand why they needed more photographs of me, and apparently they were hounding my hon. Friend at the same time.

Mr. Golding: Had I been the policeman, my answer would have been simple—"I am trying to get a good one." That at least is the justification given to me.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport—

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Will my hon. Friend accept that I am now the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish? Although that includes part of Stockport, it causes some confusion if I am now referred to as the hon. Member for Stockport.

Mr. Golding: I apologise to the hon. Member who now represents Stockport, if there is one. I apologise to my hon. Friend for getting his constituency wrong. I have often suffered from similar mistakes.
My hon. Friend talked about visits to the seaside, and referred to the cardboard cutouts through which someone pops his head and has his photograph taken as Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan or Miss World—

Mr. Mikardo: Mickey Mouse.

Mr. Golding: Indeed. But he did not refer to the most common sight, in other places, if not in Nottinghamshire—that of a photographer with a monkey on his arm, or even more than one monkey. A great feature of working class life when I was a kid was having one's picture taken with the monkey.
The clause does not refer to monkeys, but I can understand why Nottingham would wish to control photographers who are likely to visit there with monkeys. Mention has been made of the Goose Fair. That could be turned into a monkey house if unrestricted entry was given to photographers to take or purport to take photographs of people with their monkeys.

Mr. Nellist: The clause refers to ways
to which the public commonly have access, whether or not as of right".
In Nottingham, at the royal ordnance factory, Beeston, there could be a situation similar to that in Staffordshire, where the GCHQ station, according to the ordnance survey map, is supposed to be a public way of access, but where notices state that the public have no way of access. Does not the clause raise many problems about which areas will be affected by it, and about whether or riot one should have regard to access in the ordnance survey or notices that are put up by Government Departments?

Mr. Golding: That is a serious point. I once discovered a regional seat of government—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not follow that line. I find it difficult to relate it to the amendment under discussion. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will try to revert to photography.

Mr. Nellist: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. With the greatest respect to your judgment, I hope that you caught the fact that I referred to the royal ordnance factory in Beeston in Nottinghamshire. I asked my hon. Friend how he would define the way in which the public commonly have access. I wanted him to stick to the areas of Nottinghamshire under consideration in the Bill.

Mr. Golding: My hon. Friend could have gone further—he could have drawn my attention to the danger of people believing that they were in an open space, and taking a photograph for trade or business, and suddenly finding that they have photographed not an open space but a royal ordnance factory or a secret Government centre. I shall not refer again, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the way in which I found the regional seat of government.
Subsection (7)(1)(a)(i) relates to
a public off-street car park".
Is it reasonable that people should be debarred from taking photographs is such a place? I think that it is, but the Bill's sponsors must say what is an off-street car park. I have looked carefully through the Bill for a definition. If a car park is off a road, is it an off-street car park? If it is at the end of an avenue, is it an off-street car park? If it is at the end of a cul de sac—as it often is—is it an off-street car park? The sponsors will have to give a definition.
It is perfectly reasonable to stop photographers and those who support to take photographs from entering


public off-street car parks for that purpose. If I am parking my car, the last thing I want is somebody photographing me doing that. That would be almost harassment.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: If they were taking my hon. Friend's photograph while he was parking his vehicle, would they be safe?

Mr. Golding: Certainly not. No one in a car park is safe when I am parking my car, as those hon. Members who park on level 2 know.
What about the recreation ground? it is reasonable to allow photographs or those purporting to take photographs for trade or business to do that unless—this point should be added to the Bill to strengthen it—people say that they want to be photographed. Many of us who visit recreation grounds do not want to be photographed. We go there for recreation, not to be plagued by photographers with monkeys or cardboard cut-outs—[Interruption] I am glad that Conservative Members are giving me such support. I hope that I am not being offensive, but when I distinguished between the beautiful and the ugly, I was not excluding Conservative Members from the latter category. I shall be glad to have the support of some of those uglies for this amendment.
The Bill refers to a
pleasure ground or open space under the management and control of a local authority
and to
a street or esplanade, parade, promenade or way
There is a distinctly Victorian ring about that.

Mr. Mikardo: What about an arboretum?

Mr. Golding: An arboretum would certainly be included if it was under local authority control—

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed on Thursday.

Rugby Tour (South Africa)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Neubert.]

10 pm

Mr. John Carlisle: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me this opportunity, and to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for coming back from the winter Olympics especially for this important debate. It is absolutely right that he should have been there, as he is a great sporting ambassador. We disagree on one or two matters, perhaps including the subject of this debate, but I have great admiration for him, which I know is shared throughout the international sporting world.
I bring this matter to the attention of the House today to highlight what I believe is continuing Government pressure on the Rugby Football Union. That pressure has been most apparent in the past few months both from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and, to a lesser extent, from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Pressure has been brought to bear to try to persuade the Rugby Football Union not to undertake its proposed tour of South Africa. It has, of course, a perfectly legitimate right to go there, as has any sports team that wishes.
South Africa has not been excluded from the International Rugby Board as it has been excluded from the relevant boards for some other sports—for political rather than sporting reasons, I hasten to add. No ban is imposed on sportsmen entering the country — a great change from 1968 and 1970 when the South African Government prevented Basil D'Oliveira from entering the country. Because this is a well-loved and well-played sport, especially among white South Africans, the moves that have been made towards full integration have been highlighted and should be emphasised today.
This debate will be a focus of great attention for sportsmen and sports-lovers both in this country and in South Africa, and especially for the non-white population and sportsmen of South Africa, who I believe have suffered most as a result of the boycott imposed by the Gleneagles agreement. It is ironic that occasionally—more often than not, I believe — when sanctions are imposed to try to benefit certain sections of the population, it is they who are most harmed. It is a great tragedy that millions of white and non-white South Africans cannot enjoy international participation or see international stars. If the tour goes ahead, I believe that it will bring immense benefit to them and to others who will follow the tour with great interest.
At Environment Question Time last week, I asked my hon. Friend to desist from further political pressure. He quite reasonably put the question back to me, asking what I defined as pressure. Perhaps I may begin to answer that now. The pressure that he has applied to the Rugby Football Union in the past few months is very similar to that which he applied, perhaps unwittingly, to MCC members last July, although I do not intend to go over that old ground again. It is the pressure that he has put on individual committee members to try to persuade them that the tour should not take place. There is also the pressure that he has put on his fellow Ministers, asking them in effect to join him in boycotting certain internationals. It was sad that a Welsh Minister felt that it was not fitting for him to go to an international, because a bunch of


schoolboys came over here to play. That rubbed off on the Leader of the Opposition, who found himself in a certain dilemma.
There was also perhaps a veiled threat, in the answer to the questions on Wednesday, that some financial pressure might be put upon the Rugby Football Union. The Minister may have implied that the Sports Council, which discourages the giving of finance to sports that participate in games with South Africa, might apply that to the RFU. Those are the pressures that I have in mind. There is another form of pressure in the suggestion that the Rugby Football Union, by going to South Africa, might be behaving somewhat irresponsibly in relation to other sports. The Minister would have to admit that those forms of pressure have been applied. I understand that he is obliged to put some pressure on the RFU because of the Gleneagles agreement, but the use of those pressures warrants a debate and the asking of some questions.
The real question is whether that is pressure, blackmail, or both. I believe that it is legitimate under the Gleneagles agreement to offer discouragement. Is it fair, though, to put excessive pressure upon individuals who are just making use of their legitimate right to ask themselves whether they should make a tour or not?
My hon. Friend's slavish adherence to the Gleneagles agreement, and his zealous enthusiasm to make sure that the agreement is applied, go beyond the aims of those who signed it in the first place. We must never forget that it is merely a discouraging document. Those are the words in the agreement. It was never legally sanctioned. It was not debated in the House at the time. Indeed, it has only been discussed here very rarely, and probably only in Adjournment debates and during Question Time. The agreement advises that Governments should try to discourage their various sporting bodies from making sporting contacts with countries such as South Africa
where selection is based on race, colour or ethnic origin".
If teams were still selected on that basis in South Africa, the agreement would have some credibility and could, perhaps, justifiably command some support. Since that situation does not now exist, the agreement is to my mind a deception and, frankly, a fraud.
I do not need to remind my hon. Friend of the various international commissions and individuals who have gone to South Africa and found great progress there towards full integration. In 1980, Mr. Dickie Jeeps of the Sports Council came back with a favourable report, although I must be careful to say that the report drew no conclusions.
The most dangerous threat facing sport under the agreement is the shift by the Government towards using an agreement made on sporting grounds to one that is now unashamedly used for political purposes. I believe that my hon. Friend will confirm—as, to his credit, he often has — that great progress towards integration has been made. The question that he must answer is whether he now believes that the Government should restrict their activities to the sporting field or whether—in the words of Sir Anthony Tuke, past president of the MCC—the goal posts have been moved. There is little doubt that we are now talking about a political document. My hon. Friends who signed my early-day motion would agree with me.
There is now a demand that the political situation in South Africa must change dramatically before sporting contact can take place. That is not what the Gleneagles agreement says. It says that sporting contact should be discouraged and does not mention political circumstances.

It is dangerous for my hon. Friend the Minister to move in that direction. If we begin to apply political considerations about where we play our sport, should we not also consider countries behind the iron curtain, in South America and so on? I must confess to being somewhat appalled during Question Time last Wednesday by my hon. Friend's quotation of the South African Council on Sport. It has often said that no normal sport can be played in an abnormal society.
I do not have time to question whether the definition of an abnormal society applies to South Africa—perhaps there is some justification for that — and whether it might be extended to India, Hungary and South America. My hon. Friend has just been to Yugoslavia. Is that a normal society? Although it is treading on dangerous ground to say so, one might even say that Northern Ireland is not entirely normal. My hon. Friend must be careful as the SACOS orgainsation is not representative of the non-white population. It is based purely on a small number of Indians and Cape coloureds who are using a political weapon and have no interest in sport. My hon. Friend will know of the various allegations that have been made about the intimidation processes used by SACOS. They were mentioned in the Sports Council report under Mr. Dickie Jeeps.
I was also disappointed that my hon. Friend did not see fit to see Mr. Abe Williams, the coloured manager of the recent South African schoolboys' side which visited Wales. He should have taken that opportunity to speak to him and possibly to met the team. That visit was a breakthrough, albeit a small one, and it is a pity that he denied himself the opportunity to see them. I cannot help asking myself why, in June 1982, he received a deputation from the anti-apartheid movement which was led by an hon. Member but in the same month refused to see Mr. Joe Pamensky, the president of the South African Cricket Union. Such questions must be asked. I urge my hon. Friend, as I have urged him before, to go out to South Africa, whereupon he will be able to speak with much greater authority and will earn the respect of British people and the House.
One of the arguments that is bound to crop up—it has in the past few days—is that if the Rugby Football Union goes ahead with the tour, other countries will boycott the Commonwealth or Olympic games. Those of us who do not like blackmail—most right hon. and hon. Members do not — find such arguments somewhat fallacious. I remember being told in 1980 by a Whip who is not here at the moment that I should back off from my support for the British Lions going to South Africa, because the tour might prejudice the Lancaster House agreement. Perhaps it is a pity that it did not. I remember being told in 1982, when the rebel British cricket team went out and various right hon. and hon. Members tried to support its right to go that that might affect the Commonwealth games. There was no such effect.
I believe that we over-emphasise the blackmail threat made by some countries. It has no part in the House and it has no part in sport. If we must play our sport and games looking over our shoulders all the time for a blackmail threat, the game is not worth playing. The sports bodies are now showing a great deal of sense. It is good that the Test and County Cricket Board told the Pakistan cricket authorities only two weeks ago that, if it refused to accept Graham Dilley on the tour, the England side would not go.
The sports authorities are now showing the Government and politicians that they want to get on with the game and that they are heartily sick of political interference. The rejection by the Commonwealth Games Council for England of the new code and the constant support of the Central Council for Physical Recreation and the Sports Council against retaliatory action means that many sportsmen are standing up and telling the Government, "Please get off our backs and let us get on with the game."
This early-day motion, with 102 signatures, is an expression of the belief, not just of hon. Members but of many people outside the House, that we fully acknowledge the difficulties faced by my hon. Friend the Minister and by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. However, the time has come to say stop, and to tell the Government that they should back off from further political pressure. It is understandable that they should discourage the tour under the agreement, but that motion—because of the number of people who signed it and the many who said that they would have signed it but for political reasons — is guidance, rather than a warning to the Government, that at this stage we should back off.
It is ironic that four or five years ago the Labour Minister with responsibility for sport, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell), presented five conditions to the South African authorities. If he considered that those conditions were fulfilled, we would have resumed sporting relations. It has been confirmed by the opposition spokesman in Cape Town that the Labour party now believes those conditions to have been met. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will regard this as a genuine attempt to tell him that now that the conditions that were laid down by the Labour Minister have been fulfilled it is our duty as a Conservative Government to allow the tour to proceed.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Neil Macfarlane): I am bound to say at the outset that my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle) has said some things this evening that would have been better left unsaid, that have been grossly distorted and will delude many people outside the House. He does his caucus outside the House no good by doing so.
No one can be under any illusion about the serious issues that we are debating this evening. They affect the Commonwealth and the future of sport at international level, and they concern a topic that has dominated the parliamentary career of my hon. Friend since 1979.
We know that the Rugby Football Union will decide at the end of next month whether to play rugby in South Africa. Many commentators in many journals seem to believe that the decision has been made, and that the tour will proceed. I do not know whether the decision has been made. Therefore, it is especially opportune that my hon. Friend has sought the debate now. It affords me a welcome opportunity to set out in more detail than might otherwise have been possible the Government's view for the House, the Rugby Football Union and the public.
My hon. Friend expressed concern that the Rugby Football Union should be free to make its decision without undue pressure from the Government. Here, again, he distorted what we have done so far. Our position is clear, not least to the RFU. It has an invitation from South

Africa, and its committee—no one else—will decide whether to accept it. There cannot and will not be any coercion from the Government or the Sports Council, but there will continue to be very strong advice, which I hope members of the RFU will consider closely.
That advice will come as no surprise to the RFU, the world of sport, or the House, based as it is on clear and consistent Government policy. This is fundamentally a Commonwealth policy. The Commonwealth view is that the principles underlying sport and those of apartheid are incompatible. Hence, we have the Commonwealth statement on apartheid in sport — the so-called Gleneagles agreement — which was first drawn up in 1977 and has since been reaffirmed by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and by Commonwealth Heads of Government in Lusaka in 1979, in Melbourne in 1981 and in New Delhi last November. That statement calls on the Government and other Commonwealth Governments to discourage sportsmen and women from sporting contacts with South Africa. Its central passage reads:
Mindful of these and other considerations, they [Commonwealth Heads] accepted it as the urgent duty of each of their Governments vigorously to combat the evil of apartheid by withholding any form of support for, and by taking every practical step to discourage, contact or competition by their nationals with sporting organisations, teams or sportsmen from South Africa or from any other country where sports are organised on the basis of race, colour or ethnic origin".
The key words are "practical steps" and "discourage". Our obligation and policy remain what they have been under successive Administrations: to do what we can to persuade, to advise, to discourage—not to prevent. On this, perhaps the most fundamental of points, there is no disagreement between my hon. Friend and the Government. There is and can be no restriction by the Government of the RFU's freedom to make its decision and to board planes at Heathrow airport if that is what it chooses.
Whatever the RFU's decision, the Government will not take any actions or sanctions that would prejudice the established autonomy of sports bodies. As the responsible Minister I am totally committed to doing what I can to maintain the independence of sports and sports organisations. The Sports Council was established in 1972, with its independence protected by royal charter. The governing bodies of sport — like the RFU — are autonomous and the Government's and Sports Council's roles are essentially supportive. Internationally, the same principle applies, and one of my aims is to resist further moves to use sport for political ends.
However, like it or not, international sport has acquired a political role. The enormous media attention which occasions such as the current Sarajevo winter games attract and the moneys involved make this inevitable. As the responsible Minister, I cannot ignore the worldwide importance of sport to our nation.
Nor can sport ignore its public and political importance. Sportsmen and women seek and enjoy the benefits of fame. They cannot ignore its responsibilities. They cannot wish away the possible wider consequences, for themselves and for others, of their decisions and actions in pursuit of their chosen sport. The Government have a role here with the Sports Council in watching and dealing with these wider or strategic issues. So, in a case of this kind, the Government and the Sports Council are quite properly putting their views to the RFU.
With the RFU's power to decide comes, inevitably, the responsibility to consider carefully the wider implications of this possible tour for rugby, for sport, for Britain and for the Commonwealth.
For the Government, then, sporting relations with South Africa are primarily a Commonwealth issue. Membership of any international grouping brings benefits, responsibilities and obligations. We are proud members of the Commonwealth. We respect and meet our obligations, as we expect others so to do. For the Commonwealth, the Gleneagles agreement represents an important commitment and we respect and support that general view.
The basis of that commitment is that the Commonwealth is multiracial, especially in sport. Some sports—cricket and rugby in particular—have developed in parallel with the Commonwealth itself. They have been essentially Commonwealth sports. The Commonwealth statement sets out the Commonwealth's opposition to, and concern about, the effect of apartheid on the playing and organisation of sport in South Africa.
For many sportsmen the exclusion of South African sportsmen from international competition is clearly a source of regret—the more so in our country because of the close ties which had developed over many decades. However, reality must be faced. The Government are committed to the Commonwealth and to the Commonwealth statement. Sport, too, has by and large taken a similar view; in fact, it led the way. The International Olympic Committee has excluded South Africa from membership since 1970, as has the International Cricket Conference. Other major international federations such as FIFA, the world governing body of football, and the IAAF, for athletics, have taken similar action, most before 1977.
Sport and Governments are in broad agreement about South Africa. The various unofficial cricket tours in recent years prove nothing, except the lure of cash to professional sportsmen. They are obviously a minority, but I doubt whether the RFU would wish to take much account of that example.
My hon. Friend has talked about changes in South Africa, but sporting opportunities on and off the pitch are, I am told, still very different if one is black rather than white. Apartheid offends the ethic of sport, which embraces freedom and fairness and social contact. Apartheid means that people of different colours do different jobs, live in different areas, go to different schools. That physical and social separation of races makes the kind of integrated sport we know impractical, if not impossible.
In a recent incident which attracted much publicity, the West Indian test cricketer Colin Croft was ejected from the whites-only portion of a South African train. I imagine that no one was more horrified at this affair than those involved in South African sport who may directly or indirectly conceal such everyday truths during any foreign sports teams visit. For every Colin Croft there are thousands of aspiring coloured sportsmen and women in South Africa who are not afforded honorary white status.
Over the years there has undoubtedly been some change and progress, which I applaud. The South African Government have passed amending legislation, allowing some exemption to sport from wider apartheid laws. White and non-white players are seen on the same rugby pitch, and, but less frequently, in the same team.
All the indications are that the improvement is sporadic and an element of confusion emerges from time to time—as, for example, occurred in the autumn of last year, when many people believed that the international rugby media congress was designed to open the door a little more, but were dumbfounded when the Minister for National Education stated that sport in schools would still not be part of those integration proposals. It is not for me to pass judgment on the internal laws of nations, Jut that was disappointing to those who look for development. The general perception is that one step forward is often met by one step back.
We all have differing views of the modest progress in the integration of sport in South Africa. It is generally accepted that the boycott by international governing bodies of sport has brought this about. Some would argue that a relaxation in the boycott would lead to further progress. We could debate the issue at length, but I have to say to the House that this is not the Commonwealth view.
My hon. Friend is a leading luminary—if I am up to date—and has been for some time, of an organisation which calls itself Freedom in Sport. But it seems to me and to many other people that it is obsessed and concerned only with reopening sporting links with South Africa. I do not understand why that general and impressive title is required for what is essentially a narrow objective. The organisation currently has a campaign—of which my hon. Friend's speech was no doubt a part—to deflect what it perceives as a threat by the Government to interfere with the RFU's freedom.
It seems to me that the Rugby Football Union can look after itself very effectively, because most of its committees are experienced and have been trained in the art over many years. But I wonder whether my hon. Friend has examples of this Government restricting the freedom of sportsmen—like, perhaps, the legal and other restrictions placed on sportsmen in South Africa. I wonder whether my hon. Friend and his organisation concern themselves with the freedom in sport of black and coloured people in South Africa—or indeed elsewhere, to look at some of the countries and regimes that he enumerated during his speech. I have to say that I think Freedom in Sport seems disinterested in genuine freedom in sport.
I have spoken about our policy and the Commonwealth's policy, so let me tell the House what action we have taken. The Government's responsibility is to offer advice and to make representations in positive terms. The Prime Minister and I have made it clear to the House that our efforts to discourage this tour of South Africa are consistent. Indeed, our record over the years confirms that the RFU should not expect otherwise.
My regular dialogue with successive RFU presidents and officials has been courteous and constructive. The RFU listens to, and I hope understands, our point of view. My hon. Friend can rest assured that between now and 30 March my officials and I will continue to press on the RFU the strength of the Government's conviction that the proposed tour would be a grave mistake. I can only suggest to my hon. Friend that the comments of the RFU president on television recently confirmed that he was having a constructive dialogue with me. The pressure on that particular gentleman is something that he would not fully understand, having been a very distinguished prop forward.
No one at the RFU should be in any doubt about the seriousness of the vote to be taken next month. A decision to make an England tour will echo and reverberate around the international corridors of sport. The interests and discussion will be intense. An immediate threat will be a number of international events in this and future years, including the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games and various cricket tours.
I should have thought that the RFU had most to lose by undertaking such a tour. Rugby Union has developed primarily as a Commonwealth sport, especially among the old Commonwealth. Therefore, rugby people can point to the importance of South Africa within an already restricted international fixture list. However, the game has now taken off elsewhere. It is played in more than 100 countries, some of which, notably Romania, are emerging into the top flight, as our Welsh colleagues would no doubt testify.
Only in the latest edition of the RFU's official magazine I saw a reference to the growth of rugby in Barbados. The Rugby Post is the official RFU magazine, and Gareth Davies, the former Welsh captain, is quoted as saying:
Rugby is still a new game in Barbados but it's well supported all the same. The locals are keen and feel that a visit from a club like Cardiff will do wonders".
That quotation is ample testimony to how the game may well expand and develop throughout our Commonwealth, and it could be put at risk over the next few months.
Continuing contact with South Africa could prejudice the RFU's and perhaps British involvement in the spread of the sport. Club and international tours to many of the

emergent countries could well be jeopardised. Already a tour to Zimbabwe by London Scottish has been postponed indefinitely, pending the RFU's decision on touring South Africa.
The RFU must make the judgment about the potential cost to its sport of touring South Africa. It is free to go or not to go, but it is my duty to ensure that the RFU recognises the possible consequences for it and for other sports and sports people.
The freedom of individual sportsmen and women to visit South Africa is not at risk, neither is the freedom of individual South Africans to use their passports to come here to play at Wimbledon, in the county cricket championships, in the Open Golf, and so on. We do not recognise the "black list" produced in the name of the United Nations.
My hon. Friend has expressed a false concern about freedom in sport. The freedoms at risk are not here in this country but in South Africa. The Government's view of the possible tour is based upon a wider concern than that of my hon. Friend, whose close links with South Africa are not concealed.
This must be an unsettling period for English Rugby, but I should remind the House that last year the Welsh Rugby Union decided not to tour South Africa. Now special efforts are being made to encourage a tour to take place. I hope that those concerned will not bow to pressure within the RFU. I hope that they will decide not to go, in the wider and future interests of theirs and other sports in the Commonwealth.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at half-past Ten o'clock.